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Illustration of a Martinez

Illustration — generated, not photographed

Martinez

Sweet vermouth leads here, dark and herbal, with maraschino adding a nutty cherry weight underneath and orange bitters lifting the finish. It drinks rich and slow, more sipping than sharp. The gin needs backbone — juniper and spice enough to cut the sugar — or the vermouth simply swallows it.

45 ml
gin
45 ml
sweet vermouth
1 bar spoon
maraschino liqueur
2 dashes
orange bitters

Measures — IBA official specification

Stirred over ice, strained, orange twist.

The drink and how it got here

The Martinez is where the Martini comes from, and its own beginning is unclear in the usual way. One account has Jerry Thomas making it at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco; another a bartender named Richelieue in a saloon in the town of Martinez, California. Neither can be checked, and both towns have kept telling their version anyway.

The earliest printed appearance is barely a recipe. O. H. Byron's guide of 1884 gives the Martinez in a single line — the same as a Manhattan, only gin instead of whisky — and leaves you to look up the Manhattan, which in the same book is two dashes of curaçao, two of Angostura, half a wine glass of whisky and half of Italian vermouth. That is the whole entry.

Three years later Jerry Thomas's 1887 Bar-Tender's Guide prints it properly, and the proportions are the surprise: one pony of Old Tom gin to a wine glass of vermouth — twice as much vermouth as gin — with maraschino, Boker's Bitters and a slice of lemon. Sweet gin, sweet vermouth, and the vermouth in charge.

After that the two names walk in opposite directions. What kept the name Martinez settled at equal parts, swapped Old Tom for London Dry and Boker's for orange bitters, and stayed sweet. What became the Martini went on drying out for another eighty years. Same ancestor, opposite ends — so the three guides below are one drink losing its sugar a decade at a time.

Read from Martinez (cocktail) — Wikipedia (History, Ingredients)

A Manhattan with gin

1884 — O. H. Byron, in one line · Byron (1884), quoted in Wikipedia

  1. Ice cubes being dropped into a tall straight-sided mixing glass on a dark walnut bar top.

    1 The first Martinez in print is one sentence: the same as a Manhattan, only gin instead of whisky. So we build a Manhattan.

  2. Pouring a clear colourless spirit from a plain blank bottle into the iced mixing glass, about half a glassful.

    2 Half a wine glass of gin, exactly where the whisky would have gone. That single swap is the entire recipe.

  3. Pouring a dark red-brown fortified wine from a second plain blank bottle into the same mixing glass, matching the first pour.

    3 Half a wine glass of Italian vermouth. Equal parts already, and sweeter than anything anyone orders under this name now.

  4. A few dark drops falling from a small plain blank dropper bottle into the mixing glass of ice and dark liquid.

    4 Two dashes of curaçao, two of bitters. In 1884 a cocktail without bitters was not considered a cocktail at all.

  5. A long-handled bar spoon turning inside the mixing glass, frost forming on the outside, an empty stemmed glass waiting beside it.

    5 Stir it cold and strain. Nothing here would pass for a Martini today, and nobody in 1884 expected it to.

Twice the vermouth

1887 — Jerry Thomas's Bar-Tender's Guide · Thomas, The Bar-Tender's Guide (1887), quoted in Wikipedia

  1. Ice being tipped from a scoop into a tall mixing glass on the bar.

    1 Thomas prints it out in full three years later, and the proportions are where the shock is.

  2. A short pour of a clear spirit from a plain blank bottle into the mixing glass — plainly a small measure.

    2 One pony of Old Tom gin — the sweet kind. This is the smaller pour, and that is not a mistake.

  3. A long pour of dark red-brown fortified wine from a plain blank bottle into the same mixing glass, roughly twice the previous measure.

    3 A full wine glass of vermouth — twice the gin. This was a vermouth drink with gin in it, not the other way round.

  4. A bar spoon of clear cherry liqueur being tipped into the mixing glass of ice and dark liquid.

    4 Two dashes of maraschino, one of Boker's Bitters. Cherry and spice stacked on top of all that sugar.

  5. Straining a dark glossy drink into a stemmed glass, a slice of lemon resting against the rim.

    5 Strain, slice of lemon. Rich and sweet — nearer a dessert than the cold dry thing its own grandchild turned into.

Equal parts, as it settled

Today — IBA official · IBA official specification

  1. A tall mixing glass being filled with ice on the bar, a frosted stemmed glass standing ready beside it.

    1 The version that survived. Equal parts, and London Dry instead of Old Tom — the sugar came out of the gin first.

  2. Pouring a clear colourless spirit from a plain blank bottle into the iced mixing glass.

    2 Forty-five of gin, and dry now. The drink has to find its sweetness somewhere other than the bottle.

  3. Pouring a dark red-brown fortified wine from a plain blank bottle into the same mixing glass, matching the gin exactly.

    3 Forty-five of sweet vermouth. Equal, where Thomas had it running two to one against the gin.

  4. Two drops falling from a small plain blank dropper bottle into the mixing glass, a bar spoon resting in the liquid.

    4 A bar spoon of maraschino, two dashes of orange bitters. The last two things it kept from 1887.

  5. A twist of orange zest being dropped onto a stemmed glass of clear amber-rose drink with no ice in it.

    5 Stir, strain, orange zest. Set it beside a modern Martini and you can taste eighty years of sugar leaving the room.

These images are generated, not photographed

From the collection — 2 bottles

  • Erber

    Brixx 43 Dry Gin Tirol Mountain

    The dried Bergheu and firm Wacholder stand up to sweet vermouth and maraschino, where a softer gin would vanish under them.

  • Munakra

    Chardonnay Cask

    The Chardonnay cask's oak and white-grape roundness meets sweet vermouth halfway, so the drink needs no help to feel wine-like.