Dry martinis

[Johnny_L.A]

@RealityChuck

Essentially, someone invented a drink made of gin and dry vermouth (with some other ingredients that have since been dropped), garnished with an olive. What to call it?

Well, there was already a different drink – made of sweetened gin, sweet vermouth and other ingredients. It was called a martini (origin complicated, but it may have to do with a bartender named “Martinez”). So instead of coming up with a new name, they decided to name the new drink a “dry martini.”

As time passed, the original martini faded out of existance. It was no longer necessary to specify “dry.” Thus the “dry martini” became the martini. Also, less vermouth was added. So what we might call the dry martini today would really be a dry dry martini.

@Hunter Hawk

Nope; you’re correct and Snopes is wrong (at least, according to the traditional usage of the term “dry martini”). If you look in older cocktail books you’ll see recipes for martinis vs. dry martinis; they both call for equally large quantities of vermouth–making up as much as 50% of the alcohol in the drink–but the type of vermouth is different.

Of course, the usage may have changed in more recent years, but a quick perusal of Dale DeGroff’s book (which is about as authoritative as anything published recently), doesn’t describe the Snopes usage of the term “dry”.

Thanks.

So if I wanted a ‘martini’ martini, I’d specify sweet vermouth.