Anyone Can Make One
Posted on 09 May 2011
I wish I were a martini gal. It’s the drink of the city sophisticate, the woman destined to be remembered. What writer can resist the call of a drink compared to breasts? “One is not enough and three is too many.” And, of course, my heroine Dorothy Parker was a fan of the martini, writing:
I like to have a martini
Two at the very most –
After three I’m under the table,
After four I’m under my host.
As Elissa Schappell writes in her essay, Ode to a Martini, “a martini is like a kiss; anyone can make one, but a good one takes your breath.” And this is exactly what happens. It takes my breath and slams it back in my chest, then steals it again and takes it who knows where. Breathless might look good in the movies, but it makes for a poor lover.
Gin is the problem. Despite being nicknamed Juniper in high school, despite the cheesy loveliness of Donovan singing Jennifer Juniper from my record player in my teenage bedroom, I find gin bracing, antiseptic, cold. I’m more likely to end up in a heated discussion on grammar rules than in an impassioned romp, and isn’t that what alcohol is for? A martini is the drink of scientists, not lovers, all precise technique and thought, not that I dislike science, but I want my drink to reduce me to my animal self. Gin makes me wish to turn out the lights and pull the covers over my head.
I’ll take the slow burn of whiskey any day, straight down the gullet if I have a bottle, or politely disguised in gingerale if I’m in public, for even the most tomboyish woman has her limits. Moonshine will do in a pinch. Or at a picnic, a wedding, a funeral, or a bris.
I glow from within under whiskey’s warm spell, all gold flashes and happy sweet smells. Whiskey loosens tongues and fascia and tendons in equal measure, and allows for the kind of kiss one never forgets. Martini gals could end up under their hosts, but a whiskey woman? Only and ever, on top.
8 responses to Anyone Can Make One
My father is a martini drinker. He has one drink every day at cocktail hour… just the one. A very dry gin martini, on the rocks (usually with an olive, sometimes a gibson – with a cocktail onion).
Just the one, but it’s about 4 ounces! What a bomb.
The active ingredient in gin and whiskey (and all other spirits) is ethanol. So, my question is, does it really matter how ethanol is made? Is a whiskey buzz really different from a gin buzz? Are we discussing culture or chemistry? I realize I am engaging in a bit of reductionism, but I am curious what you think?
See, you have it all wrong. It’s not an ingredient, it’s a product of reactants, a side effect of happy yeast. And it causes reactions. And can cause an unwanted product, and even more side effects. And when you put in unpleasant reactants, you can get unpleasant precipitants coming out of your mouth. It’s not about reductionism, it’s about additivism! Atavisticism! Here, I’ll show you.
Barkeep! Another round. And one for my friend here. Let’s show him some chemistry.
A amusingly clever analysis. I would like to see Tequila (the good stuff from Mexico, not the crap they throw a label on North of the border) thrown into the mix. It has the most merry of affects on me (the good stuff from Mexico, not the crap ….)
Ooh, Tequila is another story all together. Delicious on the tongue, and definitely debauchery-making. I think it’s more of a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing, though. One wouldn’t want to behave that way too often, if you know what I mean.
here’s how i like’em: pour a shot of Noilly Prat dry vermouth over ice cubes in a shaker, shake a few times and then strain liquid completely out. then, pour over vermouth coated ice cubes 2 shots of bombay saphire or tanqueray (gin must …be english) and 2 shots of stoli or smirnoff (must be russian). shake well and then strain into a martini glass. plop in 2 lindsay pimento stuffed spanish queen olives skewered by a wooden or bamboo toothpick. Voilà! Even 007 would prefer this over a all vodka or all gin martini. Damn it’s good.
A flight surgeon in the Air Force, a colonel, taught me how to make it like that. Dude was a renaissance man. Good chef, too. …kind of the Jesus or Buddha of chick magnets, which was also nice.
I cant tell you how much i loved this post.
I was a big drinker a few years back. From about 17 – 27, i would drink obscene amounts of alcohol. One would call it “Alcoholism”, I would call it “youth”.
Im no longer allowed to drink alcohol for it brings great pains in my bones, sadly. And yes, my drink of choice was a Stirred Vodka Martini. Dry with one olive. Not because I was denoting any marital status, but largely because I didnt like olives.
Coming from a Bar city, where bars vastly outweigh clubs and pubs, it would still pain me to find that a martini, a decent one, would set me back 14 – 21 dollars. Making my own was far too ‘energetic’.
So this post reminds me of the old days, bar hopping, finding the right cocktail and right bartender. Eventually finding myself at Lily Blacks, a gorgeous 1940s art deco bar hidden in an alleyway in Melbourne, $14 martini in hand and listening to swing and jazz floating over the speakers.
I miss those days.
-Rick
You are a walking anachronism, my dear. I love the idea of you at Lily Blacks, and imagine it’s my kind of place, provided I can drink brown liquor there. Will you dance with me?