“Of all cocktails, the classic dry martini is the one to be sipped and savoured, the one to concentrate the mind on the intense collection of notes opened out by the vermouth”.
BOMBAY SAPPHIRE DRY MARTINI COCKTAIL.
The purest way to appreciate the work of the master distiller in uniting all the fragrant botanicals into one perfect experience.
INGREDIENTS:
Generous measure of Bombay Sapphire
Whisper of Martini Extra Dry Vermouth
METHOD:
Fill the glass half of the Boston shaker (Hudson) with ice. Coat the inside of the glass shaker with vermouth. Discard the ice and vermouth. Refill with ice and pour in the Bombay Sapphire. Holding the base of the glass shaker, stir (never shake) until ice cold and pour into a chilled martini glass.
GLASS:
Chilled martini
GARNISH:
Olive, twist or silver skinned onion.
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excerpt 3 from “A Most Elegant Partnership”…
The martini cocktail began appearing in a variety of bartender’s manuals in the 1880′s. All of the initial concoctions used sweeter; darker Italian vermouth, sweeter Old Tom gin, and often gum syrup, as well as a dash of orange bitters. This dark creation bore little resemblance to the one we know today. Little by little the varieties began to converge, ingredients began to fall by the wayside and people on both sides of the Atlantic settled on martini as a name, over Martinez and a host of other contenders.
By the turn of the century the martini cocktail had become far drier, the syrup had been discarded, the gin was London or Plymouth – certainly not sweet – and the vermouth was dry French, which made the drink lighter in colour. The last ingredient to be discarded was the dash of bitters, which persisited at least until the 1930′s. The movement towards dryness and clarity continued through the first three decades of the 20th Century and beyond. A little-known fact is that the cocktail took until as late as 1940 to acquire its famous ‘silver bullet’ appearance, thanks to new techniques in vermouth production. Until then it was characterised by a yellowish tinge.
more to follow…
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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
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