Last night I ordered a Key Lime Martini. The recipe is vodka, creme-de-cacao, and lime juice. I love citrus juice in general, and it was that which enticed me.
[queue waitress’ voice in the Monty Python “Spam” sketch when a customer asks for a meal without Spam in it] Bleaaahhhh![/queue waitress’ voice in the Monty Python “Spam” sketch when a customer asks for a meal without Spam in it]
It was then I realized: Would Cary Grant have ordered a lime martini? The answer is obvious. When ordering cocktails, one must always ask oneself, WWCGD?
That is all.
Actually, Cary wouldn’t even have considered vodka for a martini. No one would have until James Bond ordered a “vodka martini shaken, not stirred.” in the movie Dr. No.
This calling all kinds of shit “martinis” is a nasty 1990s aberration that I hoped would be outdated by this point in the new century.
According to this sort of reasoning, you could shake up some rye with a dash of sweet vermouth, pour it into a cocktail glass with a cherry, and call it an “East Hackensack Martini.”
Or mix tomato juice with Worcestershire, tabasco, celery salt, and vodka, stir it with a celery stalk in a tumbler, and call it a “Sunday Brunch Martini.”
Isn’t cacao a chocolate flavor? Why would key lime themes have chocolate? Is there chocolate in key lime pie and that’s why I crave the damned stuff all the damned time? I GOTS TO KNOW!
Cary would have responded to the waitress’s rudeness by saying “I’ve suddenly turned gay!”, then would have stalked ex-wife Dyan Cannon dining in the same restaurant, quickly and discreetly held hands with Randolph Scott at a corner table, then filed suit against Chevy Chase for asking “what type of fruit wants lime juice in a martini?” on the way out the door.
According to the Esquire drink database, what is now known as a “vodka martini” was originally called a “Kangaroo,” so you may be right. I can’t see Bond (James Bond) walking into a bar, lighting a smoke, and saying, “A kangaroo, please.”
The cocktail I have been served under the name of a Key Lime Martini is made with vanilla vodka and Rose’s Lime–basically a genteel kamakazi–and was very good, if a bit too acidic for my tastes. It did taste almost exactly like key Lime pie filling.
I agree that a martini is gin or vodka and dry vermouth (although years and years ago, sweet vermouth was used), and these concoctions–some of them very tasty–although served in a martini glass, are rightfully called cocktails.
It is a chocolate flavor, but it’s white in color. My guess is that it’s included in the drink more fore aesthetic purpose, to give it a pearly green color that makes it look like “trendy”. Or maybe like something you’d see on a Star Trek episode. I wouldn’t be surprised if it glowed in the dark; the finished drink turns out to be that shade of green. It was terribly sweet as well. I expected something more like a standard martini but with a lime touch.