Exactly, a martini has gin and vermouth. A cocktail with vodka and vermouth is a kangaroo.
Note that few can taste anything in vodkas once you get up to Smirnoff in quality. Grey Goose actually rates lower almost every blind test. Cool bottle, tho.
Can’t really add anything to the Hendrick’s and Bombay Sapphire love, but I will say that Hendricks makes a fantastic Tom Collins.
Dang it! I hate it when I do that!
~sigh~ I’d like to say it was me… but alas post 21 usurped me. 
I’m not much of a vodka drinker. I don’t care about vodka at all. Don’t see the point. That said, my family is Polish and full of vodka drinkers. Not a single one is particularly enamored with Grey Goose. For cheap(er) vodka, in my family, it’s Tanqueray Sterling. For decent vodka, it’s Chopin.
I disagree with the notion that shaking a martini is a new thing. William Powell did an entire thesis on how to shake a martini in “The Thin Man,” which came out in 1934.
“Would you like a drink?”
“It’s a bit early, isn’t it?”
“Too early for a drink?”
“No! Too early for stupid questions! Of course I want a drink!”
Word on the street is that Cocchi Americano is currently the best substitute for Kina Lillet. It’s good stuff–try a glass of it with a few ice cubes.
Commentary from Toby Cecchini:
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/case-study-cocchi-americano-waking-the-dead/
My name is Maus Magill, and I approve this message.
I assumed by “measure” he meant “shot”. In which case, yipes - four and a half shots, before dinner. Then he plays high stakes baccarat.
In the book Moonraker Bond gets more or less plastered and then takes benzedrine. And then plays bridge.
His liver must have been charred to ashes by 1965 or so.
Regards,
Shodan
“Measure” just means “equal parts.” He’s giving you the relative proportions. You can make it as big or small as you like.
+1, and I say “very” dirty. Otherwise it is too plain.
I have seen drink recipes that kindly instruct you to add “3 parts of x” and “6 parts of y.” Something seemed off there.
It’s funny considering how “dryness” is now the sign of a good martini, but according to Wikipedia, the original recipe called for two ounces of vermouth and one ounce of gin. Imagine serving one of those nowadays.
Not really, but look around. These days anything served in a conical glass with a stem is called a martini, up to and including tap water. :rolleyes:
Possibly off-topic, but as a man born in the fifties, I was given to understand that vodka was a distilled spirit that came from potatoes. What’s with people talking about vodkas made with wheat?
Vodka hasn’t been made with potatoes for years. It is much cheaper to mass produce and distill grain alcohol. Potato vodka is rare, either the cheapest rotgut (which is not readily available in the US) or top-shelf fancy stuff like the aforementioned Chopin.
Most vodka out there is distilled from wheat or rye (or some other grain). Its origins are that of a rye-based distillate.
Done in one.
I like them dirty once in a while. But either way, Sapphire is ace.
Fuck 'em. If they want to make a non-potato spirit, they can dam well call it something else, instead of messing with my childhood memories.
Plus as wiki sez="The original Martinez cocktail consisted of two ounces of Italian Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth, one ounce Old Tom sweet gin, two dashes maraschino liquor, one dash bitters, shaken, and served with a twist of lemon.[citation needed] By the end of the 19th century, the martini had morphed into a simpler form: two dashes of orange bitters, mixed with half a jigger of dry French vermouth and half a jigger of dry English gin, stirred and served with an olive."
But as my dad said “An extra-dry martini is just straight gin with an olive”.