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Illustration of a Martini

Illustration — generated, not photographed

Martini

Cold, dry and close to neat spirit — the vermouth adds weight and a faint bitterness rather than much flavour of its own. The gin has nowhere to hide: juniper needs backbone here, and any softness in the botanicals shows up whole. Lemon oil sharpens the first sip and keeps it from going flat.

60 ml
gin
10 ml
dry vermouth
lemon

Measures — IBA official specification

Stirred cold with dry vermouth, strained, lemon twist.

The drink and how it got here

Nobody can say where it came from, and the honest version of the story is a list of claims rather than an answer. The name may simply be the vermouth brand. It may come from the Martinez, a drink served in the early 1860s at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco, where people drank before catching the evening ferry to the town of Martinez, California — whose residents say their own bartender invented it. What is documented is later: a Martinez Cocktail appears in Jerry Thomas's 1887 Bartender's Guide, made with Old Tom gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino and bitters, shaken, with a slice of lemon.

The drink that carried the name at first would be sent back today. Harry Johnson's Bartenders' Manual of 1888 gives a Martini Cocktail as half a wine glass of Old Tom gin and half a wine glass of vermouth, with gum syrup and bitters — sweetened, and half of it vermouth. Old Tom gin is itself sweet. Nothing about it is the cold dry thing the word now means.

The first dry martini is sometimes credited to a bartender at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, in 1911 or 1912. Then Prohibition did more for it than any bartender: gin was the easiest spirit to make illegally, so between 1920 and 1933 the martini became the drink Americans actually had. When repeal brought good gin back, it did not go back to being sweet. It went the other way.

From there the whole history is one number. Two parts gin to one vermouth by 1922; three to one in the 1930s; four to one in the 1940s; five or six to one by the end of the century, with the stubborn going to eight, twelve, and the fifteen-to-one called a Montgomery. The procedure barely moved — ice, stir, strain, cold glass. The recipe moved the entire way. So the three guides below are three points on one line, not three ways of doing the same thing.

Read from Martini (cocktail) — Wikipedia (Preparation, Origins and mixology) · Martinez (cocktail) — Wikipedia

Half and half, sweetened

1888 — Harry Johnson's Bartenders' Manual · Johnson, Bartenders' Manual (1888), quoted in Wikipedia

  1. Cracked ice being tipped into a tall straight-sided mixing glass standing on a dark walnut bar top.

    1 Ice first, and plenty of it. Everything after this is about getting cold without getting watery.

  2. A few dashes of a dark syrup and a few dashes of bitters falling from a small plain blank dropper bottle into the iced mixing glass.

    2 Gum syrup and bitters. This is where it starts sounding wrong — but in 1888 a martini was a sweet drink, and this is why.

  3. Pouring a clear spirit from a plain blank bottle into the mixing glass, filling it about halfway.

    3 Old Tom gin, half. It is a sweeter gin than a London Dry — the sugar in this drink is not only the syrup.

  4. Pouring a pale golden fortified wine from a second plain blank bottle into the same mixing glass, bringing it level with the gin.

    4 Vermouth, the same again. Equal parts — half this glass is vermouth, and that is the part people find hardest to believe.

  5. A long-handled bar spoon turning inside the mixing glass, the ice moving smoothly, condensation running down the outside.

    5 Stir it cold, then strain it into a small glass. Sweet, aromatic, closer to a Manhattan than to anything you would be handed today.

Two to one

1922 — the form it is still recognised by · MacElhone, Harry's ABC of Mixing Cocktails (1922), p. 67, quoted in Wikipedia

  1. An empty stemmed cocktail glass sitting alone on the bar, packed with ice to chill it.

    1 Chill the glass first. It is served with no ice in it, so the glass is the only thing keeping it cold at the table.

  2. Pouring a clear colourless spirit from a plain blank bottle into a separate mixing glass full of ice.

    2 London Dry now, not Old Tom. Two parts — the gin has stopped being one ingredient among several and become the drink.

  3. Pouring a pale straw fortified wine from a second plain blank bottle into the mixing glass, roughly half as much as went in before.

    3 Dry vermouth, one part. Thirty years earlier this was half the glass. It will keep shrinking.

  4. A bar spoon turning steadily inside the mixing glass, frost forming on the outside.

    4 Stirred, never shaken. Shaking aerates it and leaves it cloudy, and this drink is judged partly on being clear.

  5. Straining a clear pale drink from the mixing glass into the now-emptied stemmed cocktail glass, with a green olive waiting on a cocktail pick beside it.

    5 Strain it off the ice. Olive or lemon twist — by now the drinker chooses, and that is a change too.

Dry, as it is served now

Today — IBA official · IBA official specification

  1. Ice cubes filling a tall mixing glass on the bar, a chilled stemmed cocktail glass standing ready beside it.

    1 Same start as a hundred years ago. Everything that changed is in the next two pours.

  2. A long steady pour of a clear colourless spirit from a plain blank bottle into the iced mixing glass.

    2 Sixty millilitres of gin. Whatever bottle you like here is the bottle you will taste — there is nothing else in this drink to hide behind.

  3. A very short pour of a pale straw fortified wine from a plain blank bottle into the same mixing glass — a fraction of what went before.

    3 Ten millilitres of dry vermouth. Six to one. In 1888 this glass was half vermouth, and that is the whole history in one pour.

  4. A bar spoon turning smoothly inside the mixing glass, heavy frost and condensation on the glass.

    4 Stir until the outside of the glass hurts to hold. Cold is doing the work the vermouth used to do.

  5. A strip of lemon peel being squeezed skin-outward over a filled stemmed cocktail glass of clear pale drink, a fine mist of oil catching the light.

    5 Squeeze the oil off a lemon peel over the top, or an olive if you would rather. The oil is the only aromatic left in it.

These images are generated, not photographed

From the collection — 17 bottles

  • Aqva Lvce

    Gin

    Aqva Lvce reads clean and juniper-led rather than heavily flavoured, which is what a Martini wants — nothing to hide behind the vermouth.

  • Beefeater

    London Dry

    Beefeater's juniper-forward London Dry backbone and full 40% hold their shape against vermouth instead of vanishing into it.

  • Bertagnolli

    Gin 1870 Premium Dry

    A dry gin like the 1870 has nowhere to hide at 5:1, and its juniper-forward, low-sugar build is exactly what a Martini needs to stay cold and sharp.

  • Bombay Sapphire

    London Dry

    Bombay Sapphire's London Dry juniper backbone and 47% strength hold their shape against vermouth and dilution.

  • Copeland

    Irish Gin

    Copeland's 45% and juniper spine hold their shape against vermouth instead of disappearing into it.

  • Cubical

    London Dry Ultra Premium

    At 45% Cubical holds its line against the vermouth and stays cold and juniper-dry to the last sip.

  • Dol Gin

    Dolomites Gin

    45% gives it the backbone to sit stirred and cold with only a whisper of vermouth, which is where a juniper-forward Dolomites gin shows best.

  • Gin Mare

    Capri

    A Mare gin's savoury, olive-leaning backbone turns a Martini briny rather than piney — stir it very cold and skip the twist for an olive.

  • Ki No Bi

    Kyoto Dry Gin

    At 45.7% this Kyoto dry gin carries a stirred Martini without dilution flattening its citrus and tea-dry finish.

  • Lahhentagge

    Ösel Dry Gin

    The Lahhentagge Ösel is dry and juniper-forward at 45%, so it stays sharp and cold under a 5:1 pour of vermouth without thinning out.

  • Matsui

    The Hakuto Premium

    The Hakuto pear note sits where vermouth fruit usually goes, and Matsui's 47% keeps it upright after stirring.

  • Noep Distillery

    Sünk London Dry Gin

    A London Dry with nothing added is what a Martini wants, and Sünk from NOËP Distillery has the juniper spine to hold its own against vermouth.

  • Okayama

    Craft Gin

    At 50% the Okayama holds its shape against vermouth and dilution, so the juniper stays sharp down to the last sip.

  • Silent Pool

    Gin

    The restrained, Silent Pool style of juniper won't shout over vermouth, and 43% ABV gives the stirred drink enough spine when chilled.

  • The Stin

    Styrian Dry Gin Classic Proof

    The Stin's 47% Classic Proof keeps the juniper spine intact through stirring and dilution, where a 40% gin would go thin.

  • Wild Werk 7

    Gnadenwald Dry Gin

    A dry Gnadenwald gin has the juniper backbone and Alpine herb edge to carry a Martini with only a whisper of vermouth.

  • Wild Werk 7

    Wonderland Dry Gin

    A dry gin like Wonderland has nowhere to hide in a Martini, and that juniper-led backbone is exactly what the drink asks for.