To each their own. Keeping gin that cold will keep it from melting more water from the ice, and therefore more ginny :).
I like my martinis a certain way and so do you. Great. Thanks to you lee I am two martinis further into “school night” than I should be, I am not being facetious, I am truely thankful, and probably violating a few SDMB rules by posting drunk. Plus I am watching the Super Squishy Simpson’s episode… Can life get better?
I’m a traditionalist. 15 parts Beefeater gin to one part Martini & Rossi dry vermouth, served very cold and straight up, with several olives. Woe betide those who bring me a twist. If I had wanted a glass of lemonade, I’d have ordered one. The same with an on-the-rocks Martini, who ordered a gin slushy?
I make the same thing only with the olive juice and red wine. I call it a Dirty Frenchman.
Sorry stolen joke.
:dubious: Traditionalist? I believe those proportions of gin and vermouth are a relatively recent development.
The Savoy recipe has the proportions I like, so far.
Vodka martini, dry, rocks, with a twist. The true vodka martini, BTW, includes just the slightest dash of bitters (that’s a really, really old recipe, and nobody does this anymore). Do not omit the vermouth. I am not a gin fan outside of a ginantonix.
All these candy-ass so-called martinis just piss me off. If you’re gonna call those concoctions a “Martini”, then a Manhattan is a martini.
There’s nothing more controversial in mixology than the right amount of vermouth. I won’t even get into it. I find my own tastes change. These days, I like half-vodka (ketel one), half-gin (bombay sapp) and a shimmer of dry sherry. Shaken, with either olives or a twist of lemon, depending on my mood. I’m quite fond of gin, but find the half-n-half is very refreshing and clean-tasting.
Now for the more important business of bruising. You can’t actually “bruise” a spirit. You do make it cloudy, but you don’t change the taste really. I know people will protest that it tastes different to them, even “brutal,” and I don’t doubt for one second that they believe it – but it is largely the power of suggestion and perhaps the cloudy nature of the drink, more than the taste, that makes it different. I would be willing to bet that given a blindfolded taste test of shaken and stirred martinis that were the same temperature and mix, taste testers would do no better than 50/50 at saying whether a drink was shaken or stirred. Moreover, if someone hadn’t told you that a drink could be bruised, I bet you wouldn’t know it. It’s a quaint expression, but only Americans really talk about bruising drinks. Certianly professional bartenders would know best, and the majority shake away.
This from someone who thinks a martini has vodka in it? 
Sadly cricetus, you’re wrong about how the air mix affects the taste of gin. I’ve sent back numerous cocktails because they tasted wrong-- and in every case the bartender had shaken the drink. They can do it in another room of a dimly-lit bar, and the tongue knows the difference.
I’d wager that even gin virgins can tell the difference between shaken and stirred gin, which probably explains the dropping popularity of gin as a drink, in favour of vodka.
Professional bartenders? They’re a rare species. Working bartenders in every city I’ve imbibed seem to follow one rule and one rule only: hand 'em the drink as fast as possible, and if the customer is stupid enough to order something complicated when we’re busy, cut corners.
After many years of never really being happy with Martinis, I’ve finally found one that I do rather like.
Vodka (*)
Vermouth
2 Tomolives (**)
Ratio, no less than, say, 5-1. I like Vodka straight up, so you can’t really put too little vermouth in it for me, but you can put too much.
(*) I realized, after a while, that I’m just not such a big Gin fan.
(**) I also have never really liked olives, try as I might. So, at the liquor store the other week, I found these things called “tomolives”. They’re actually pickled green tomatoes about the size of olives. They taste like sour pickles, and have a nice “snap” to them when you eat one. They have plenty of salt in them to give the drink that saltiness that comes from olives.
I can tell the difference too, and, to be honest, I prefer my martinis shaken. So there.
This is not true. In general terms, most spirits won’t be affected by shaking versus stirring. Shaking does impart more water into the drink to dilute the flavor and potency, but doesn’t change most spirits. However, gin is a somewhat uniuqe bird. Its primarily made with a wide variety of spices and aromatics which are decidedly affected by the addition of air. Different gins will react differently, but generally speaking, a shaken gin will liberate more of the essence of the spices. You can argue reasonably that this is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your palate. Old gin recipes are spiced more heavily and shaking them can push them to the threshold of being oppressive in taste. Certain other gin recipes may have their flavor mellowed and rounded out by breathing the gin, similar to a wine. “Bruising” a gin is a poor term in that it implies the gin is damaged. It is merely affected by the shaking, whether it’s improved or ruined is unique to the gin and to the taster.
I would agree with this in many cases, primarily because most drinkers aren’t familiar enough with their gin or choice or the recipies consistent enough to create a test. However, if you took a truly scientifically controlled setting (though the ice dilution difference would be a huge hurdle to overcome without biasing the test) with a group of tasters who knew their palate, you’d see a pretty provable result.
Correct, however the flaw isn’t in the methodology, just the terminology.
This is the saddest and least true aspect. There are very few “professional” bartenders out there. Very few actually “know best”. The typical ones (excusing the low-end cheap beer pushers which I happily adore) know what they like, and know what customers order, but they don’t know the why’s and hows. There’s too much personal preference involved to even define “best”. When you consider the truly professional bartenders, they will put on a show, earn their tips, and probably make a wonderfully consistent drink. However, they are probably most concerned with entertaining you. The styles glorified in Cocktail and the Bond mythos are more important to the enjoyment of the customer and as a result the bottom line. Attention to teh bottom line is ultimately what defines a “professional” bartender.
Just made one myself. 6 to 1. Bombay Sapphire and Martini & Rossi. 2 olives. Shaken.
Ahhhhhhhhhh!!
(hic)
Omniscient – We’re in 99% agreement anyway, but I maintain my position that you can’t “bruise” a spirit. Sure, you can aerate it. You can also spill it on the floor, add chocolate syrup to it, or serve it at a tepid 72 degrees. But none of those things are “bruising” it, and none of those are what people think they mean when they say they are “bruising” it. Indeed, they have no idea what they mean by the term, which is why some say it’s good, some say it’s bad, and some think you bruise it by stirring it while others say you bruise it by shaking it. It’s a useless bit of pseudo-sophistry.
What you will find all educated bartenders do is make a drink to the preferences of their customers. Most of the Martini drinkers I know (by most I mean every single one) prefer a drink shaken, not stirred. The only people who talk about “bruising” it are people who discovered cocktails last week. That includes at least three former bartenders who mix (and shake) a fabulous Martini.
I made myself a nice “wet” one last night after work. 3:1 Seagram’s gin and Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth. It was just the thing to get the taste of the day out of my mouth. Tonight, I shall go in the other direction and have a very dry one made with Bombay Sapphire and just a whisper of Martini & Rossi dry vermouth.
Note to self: Buy more olives.