[Correct Dining by Wilfrid: June 15, 2007]
This is the first in a series of lessons designed to teach the precepts of correct dining. I am sure my regular readers will be entirely familiar with these rules and principles, all of which might be regarded as a sub-division of the science of etiquette. But there may be some cads and oiks following along, so we must take no chances.
Let's start with a drink. It's called "a martini" or "a martini cocktail", and never has so much utter rubbish ever been written on single subject.
(Yes, note the color)
Although the great French gastronome Curnonsky legendarily warned against pre-dinner "coqueteles", preferring a modest kir, I think we can risk the impurity of permitting a heart-starter or two to assist the transition from the alarms of the day to the tranquility of the dining table. And a moderately stiff martini is a grown-up strategy for navigating that passage.
We shall have to touch upon the origins of this drink, and indeed of its name, tedious though the subject is. First, however, a little history will help us to understand which drink it is that is under discussion. During the dark years in the middle of the last century, it became somehow manly and rugged to pretend that the martini consisted entirely, or very nearly entirely, of ice cold gin - usually with some kind of foodstuff afloat in it, an olive or an onion. It became a great joke merely to smear the glass with vermouth, or even to show the unopened vermouth bottle to the cocktail shaker. Grown men, I believe, were rendered damp with hilarity at such junctures. I think we can be no more specific than to say that a generation or two of heavy drinkers - and in the 1950s and 1960s, taking several glasses of strong liquor at lunch was quite normal - were collectively responsible for this atrocity (the revision of history being atrocious rather than the dry martini itself).
(Chilled glass; preferred, and in any case - looking at it is making you thirsty)
Certainly we cannot blame Ian Fleming or his creation James Bond. For all Bond's association with the martini, he was, from the very first, inclined to add vodka to the mix, and to include at least a discernible proportion of good vermouth (Lillet, in fact - see Casino Royale (1953) - not strictly a vermouth, to be candid, but if anything a step up). The martini, after all, is - if it is anything - a cocktail which incorporates vermouth. It was, from its origins, a drink of interest to vermouth lovers.
Travel back to the pre-Prohibition years. A.S. Crockett, writing in the early 1930s, recalls the martinis (yes, there were several) concocted at the bar of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. The first martini recipe he gives (in The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book, republished in facsimile by New Day Publishing in 2003) simply calls for equal parts gin and Italian vermouth, jollied up with a dash of orange bitters. Now, in these historic cocktail books, Italian vermouth means sweet red vermouth. French vermouth is the dryer off-white stuff. So the first martini you are offered, prior to 1920, is a reddish, sweetish beverage. And if it is served chilled, and made from good vermouth, it will make an excellent aperitif (I am not sure about the bitters). Crockett calls, democratically, for both an olive and a twist of lemon.
The No. 2 martini divides the vermouth component equally between French and Italian (dry and sweet). The vermouth still equals the gin. But now what do we find? An entirely separate entry for something called a "dry martini". And yet still the proportion of vermouth to liquor is high: two parts gin to one part dry vermouth (a second version of the dry martini simply evens it up again - equal gin and French). Above all, the gin suggested is Old Tom, said to be a sweeter gin than we would drink today. So in the collected recipes alone, there are four martinis. The improvisatory skills of the bar-tenders might imply more. And the pages which surround these recipes are replete with countless formulae for other liquor-based cocktails in which one vermouth or another is a key taste component.
(Ingredients - lime if no lemon, gear, and reliable authorities)
You don't like vermouth? You must try harder. Drink the sweet at any time of day, over ice, perhaps with a slice of lemon. The dry makes a good chilled aperitif. Find a good one - better than Martini or Cinzano. I was all out of the superb Carpano Antica red vermouth, but at time of writing it seems to have turned up at Sherry-Lehmann again. It is like uncloying plum pudding. As for dry, worth drinking straight, look for Chambéry.
The validity of the vermouth-heavy martini, which after all is a much more interesting, complex and manageable drink than the tall measure of iced spirit dreaming of the vermouth bottle - is attested by the eminent Lucius Beebe. Beebe, a foppish journalist of blimpish public and mischievous personal politics, passionately advocated the original martini concept. Here's Lucius in Town and Country, 1955: "One of the silliest affectations [emphasis added] of the current world of drinking fashion in the United States is the vogue, among self-styled sophisticated drinkers, of the extra-dry martini." Originally, he notes, "it was made with Italian vermouth in nearly equal proportions and often with a sweet-type gin." That would be Old Tom, of course. Beebe - who ought to know - attributes the fad to the bar-tenders of the 21 Club (where, incidentally, you can get a powerful and ice cold dry martini to this very day).
Inscribe on your hearts, however, Lucius at his most luscious: "The author of these vagrant paragraphs has made himself conspicous for some years by actually asking for a three-to-one martini, and now his appearance is greeted from one end of the continent to the other with glad cries of patrons and barkeeps alike as the man who really wants vermouth, a sort of benevolent eccentric, nice to have around. Unsound, maybe actually idiot, but harmless and rather Old World." If anything, that's a little too bone dry for me. I order my martini two parts gin to one part vermouth, dry or sweet vermouth as I please. A step beyond that, which any mixer can navigate, is the H.P. Whitney (there are variant names), which calls for equal parts gin, sweet and dry vermouth, and which is probably something rather like the original martini. No, I don't put pickles of any kind in the drink; and if I am inclined, I choose vodka. The only reason the much-cursed vodka martini was invented later than the gin version is that vodka wasn't readily available outside eastern Europe and Russia until after WWII. And in any case, it was good enough for 007.
Such is the ignorance of this history that the gin martini, with almost no vermouth at all, is promoted on the basis of its originality, authenticity and purity - all of which, evidently, is just so much cobblers. One might, indeed, have reservations about promoting it on its merits. I admit the well-made bone dry gin martini as an acceptable drink in polite company, enjoyable in moderation. I know people who make it very well. But it becomes arrogant when it presents itself as the only real martini. Furthermore, when it goes beyond extra dry (and I have heard recent horror stories of New York bars serving unadulterated gin or vodka when a martini is ordered) it can become a vulgar thing. I am no enemy of alcohol - quite the contrary, some might say - but there comes a point at which one might just as well keep the bottle in the fridge or freezer and glug straight from the neck. As the evening progresses, there will at least be less spillage. But at this point we have left the idyllic glade of correct dining and entered the realm of the determined toper.
And finally...
Just a note, I suppose, on how the martini came about. The most improbable theories abound, and we can readily discount, for example, the suggestion that it is named after the Martini & Henry rifle, or indeed after any bartender named Martini found making the drink years after it is first mentioned in the literature. It is perhaps most widely claimed that it derives from an 1862 vintage cocktail named the "Martinez", which incorporated not only gin and vermouth but maraschino liqueur, bitters, sugar, and god knows what else. The simpler explanation, and one I prefer, is that the cocktail was named after a major producer of its one essential ingredient, vermouth. The Martini & Rossi company was thus named by 1863, making the explanation historically plausible: in fact, Alessandro Martini and Luigi Rossi had been making vermouth together since the 1840s. The martini - named after Martini. Stranger things have happened. Cheers.
(The martini No.2, pre-1920, awaiting its twist)
Refs:
Beebe, Lucius, "On the Rocks", reprinted in Clegg and Emrich (ed.s), The Lucius Beebe Reader (Doubleday & Co, New York, 1967).
Crockett, Albert S., The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book (Dodd Mead,New York, 1934; facsimile edition, New Day Publishing, 2003).
Discuss this article at MouthfulsFood.
Correct Dining: Since nothing seems to go without saying these days, I should concede that the principles of correct dining described in these articles arise from a cultural tradition which might be very broadly described as Western European/North American, with the further qualification that neither of those labels any longer signify cultural homogeneity (and nor should they). Essentially, it's a tradition which emerged from 18th century France, which has been continually modified since, but which retains a certain backbone of appropriateness. I do not contend that the principles have universal application.
