Having noticed two current Martini-related threads has reminded me to ask a question that came up on re-reading Brideshead Revisited recently.
A couple of times, Charles has a drink of “vermouth and gin”. How would that have been prepared? Would it be a Martini, served ice-cold as Martinis should be? But mention was also made of the English people’s positive aversion to ice-cold drinks, not least when one character says that six months in America have given her a positive phobia of ice.
So…would Charles’ drink have been simple gin and vermouth served at room temperature? What kind of glass would it have been served in? How did Brits drink vermouth and gin in those days? How do they drink it now?
Based on just that “vermouth and gin” info, it’s impossible to say exactly what the drink would have been. There were a huge number of variations of gin-and-vermouth cocktails, each with its own name, and differing only in very small proportions of ingredients.
The default instructions for serving cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book (published in 1930), are “shake and strain into a cocktail glass.” When you see the term “cocktail glass”, think “small-ish martini glass with somewhat steeper sides”.
Sounds like what used to be a typical martini glass, which used to be smaller than they usually are today. At Musso and Frank’s in Hollywood, they still serve martinis in small glasses, and give you a tiny glass pitcher of additional martini alongside it.