Who’s Waiting

Excerpt two from “A Most Elegant Partnership”…

The classic martini cocktail is a cocktail of gin and dry vermouth, served as cold as possible, usually with an olive or twist of lemon. It may be crystal clear, but its origins are not. No one knows the exact moment it was invented. No one can even be quite sure where.

Some credit the celebrated French court composer JPA Martini with a 1763 cocktail of gin and white wine. Much later, other say Jerry Thomas, the legendary bartender of San Francisco’s Occidental Hotel, made a recipe for a traveller heading to the gold-mining town of Martinez. It called for a dash of bitters, a couple of dashes of Maraschino, a whole glass of vermouth, ice, and a pony of Old Tom gin, as laid out in Thomas’ own 1887 bartender’s guide. A secondary theory concerning the town of Martinez has a gold miner in 1870 walking into Julio Richelieu’s bar to buy a bottle of whisky. The nugget of gold he offered as payment was large, so he demanded another drink before handing it over, and dubbed it a ‘Martinez’.

There are more theories about the origin of the name. Some claim it was named after the British Marini-Henry rifle, because they both sahred something of a kick. Others say it owes its name to Martini de Arma di Taggia, head barman at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, who mixed equal measures of London gin and Noilly Prat

Filed under: Cocktails and Drinks by Sam