# So what's the deal with martinis? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 4, 2000, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315 "2000-01-04T21:17:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2000, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/21 "2000-01-08T02:20:00Z")
Of course, gin and its reputation inspired William Hogarth around 1750. See, for example, this site: [http://www.haleysteele.com/hogarth/plates/beer\_and\_gin.html](http://www.haleysteele.com/hogarth/plates/beer_and_gin.html) * * * Bob the Random Expert “If we don’t have the answer, we’ll make one up.” ---
**Author:** ![\_Df](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/7ba0ec/32.png) [@\_Df](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Df)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2000, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/22 "2000-01-11T01:51:00Z")
> [@](#): > > …asking for the martini to be served very dry, straight up, and garnished with an olive. Okay, obviously I missed something in Booze 101 (it’s a miracle I can remember anything at all, _badump_), but: straight up? I mean, I can see the disadvantage of getting one “tipped over.” Very dry would seem to indicate “unadulterated,” garnished with an olive would rule out twin olives, Gibson’s, etc. But “straight up?” To me that sounds like you’re asking them not to mix another cocktail - or any of that danged sody pop - into your martini. If that’s really so, you might want to consider a new watering hole… ---
**Author:** ![aseymayo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e57/32.png) [@aseymayo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aseymayo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2000, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/23 "2000-01-11T02:21:00Z")
“Straight up” means no ice - as opposed to “on the rocks.” The drink is strained into the cocktail glass. I used to drink Scotch “neat” meaning no ice involved at any time. My father’s definition of a really dry martini was lock the vermouth in a closet and walk the bottle of gin passed the door once a week. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2000, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/24 "2000-01-11T02:44:00Z")
The funny thing about martinis is that your tongue gets drunk first. After two or three, they literally taste like water…or at least they did to me. After four or five you don’t even need a designated driver because you can’t _find_ your keys. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2000, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/25 "2000-01-11T16:03:00Z")
% Everybody loves somebody, sometimes…% Hey, your old pal, Deanerino, here. If you have a question about them martinis, let me consult the ol’ swizzle stick. It says, “The only way you can get a bruise with a martini is if you try to take it away from me.” And now, the lovely Golddiggers! ---
**Author:** ![torq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@torq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torq)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2000, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/26 "2000-01-11T19:31:00Z")
John, I agree completely; I’ve been saying that for years. Gin is foul. Tonic water is worse. Put them together and add a lime, and something magic happens rendering the combination actually drinkable. ---
**Author:** ![HAIRY41](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e8c25b/32.png) [@HAIRY41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HAIRY41)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2000, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/27 "2000-01-12T02:06:00Z")
Cocktails made with sugar or fruit juice are to be shaken. cocktails made with wine or vemouth are to be stired. It’s not a Martini without some vermouth, regardless of the amount. A chilled glass is desirable. ---
**Author:** ![Surgoshan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Surgoshan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surgoshan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2000, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/28 "2000-01-12T05:53:00Z")
Wow, I’m getting all phosisticated. Before, my liqour knowledge was limited to: Mix rum with ginger ale, hides the flavor. Tequila: salt it, slam it, suck it. Jack Daniel’s, good in tea. BEER ME Cool. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2000, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/29 "2000-01-13T17:15:00Z")
I hate the taste of alcohol. I don’t see how anyone can drink things like martinis, let alone care how they are made… I mean to me it seems like ordering your glass of dogshit stirred clockwise instead of counterclockwise…it’s still a glass of dogshit!! When I drink, I hide the taste as best I can… Long Island Iced Tea, Kamikazi, Whiskey Sour, etc. * * * – Teeming Millions: [http://fathom.org/teemingmillions](http://fathom.org/teemingmillions) “Meat flaps, yellow!” - DrainBead, naked co-ed Twister chat O p a l C a t [www.opalcat.com](http://www.opalcat.com) ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2000, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/30 "2000-01-13T17:44:00Z")
Opal, I love you like a sister, you know I do, but I have to say that your last post affected me like fingernails on a blackboard. My position is: Give a four-year-old, or a Kalahari tribesman, a cup of good coffee or a glass of fine Bordeaux, and he’ll think it’s just awful. Taste must be developed. Well, not “must,” but “should.” A couple years back I was sitting in a bar in Scottsdale, Arizona, (home of People in Golf Pants) sipping a martini…two Bright Young Things sat next to me…the young blonde woman looked up at me from her frozen-mango/papaya daiquiri, eyes big, and asked if I “really liked those things.” Christ, I thought, get me back to New York. ---
**Author:** ![\_Df](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/7ba0ec/32.png) [@\_Df](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Df)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/31 "2000-01-15T06:31:00Z")
Surgoshan- [heresy]Actually, gin and ginger ale makes a pleasant cocktail - if one **insists** on sweet.[/heresy] ---
**Author:** ![OldBroad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@OldBroad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldBroad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/32 "2000-01-15T06:42:00Z")
My husband finally quit ordering “very dry” martinis – he now orders what he really wants: Tanqueray on the rocks. At home he drinks Genever: Dutch gin. It apparently is significantly different from the British style gin. ---
**Author:** ![sunacres](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@sunacres](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunacres)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/33 "2000-01-15T07:33:00Z")
After spending years fiddling about with fancy shakers, strainers, ice buckets, tongs, and other contraptions developed in some backwater without proper mechanical chilling, it finally dawned on me to quit diluting good hooch and keep the damn bottle in the freezer. But I still appreciate the traditional glass. With the stem like a rose between thumb and forefinger, the cold, slightly thickened liquid playfully tries to topple over the thin, rimless edge of milled glass onto my eager lips. I think I’ll have one right now. ---
**Author:** ![BlockHead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aca169/32.png) [@BlockHead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlockHead)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/34 "2000-01-15T08:12:00Z")
I was introduced to a “dirty martini” which I enjoy very much (shaken! not stirred!!). I don’t have much of a taste for a regular martini but make it a dirty martinti (shaken!!) and I’m there! ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2000, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/35 "2000-01-15T11:28:00Z")
Well, just to tie up a loose end." “Bruising” the gin refers to the fact that when many clear liquors like Gin, Vodka, Ouzo, and Sambuca get cloudy and somewhat opaque when chilled alot, and it seems amplified by a little melted ice. Shaking a martini breaks and chips the ice diluting the gin a bit more (another drawback), and gets it colder than a stir. So the martini comes out clouded and more diluted when shaken. The Martini mister as I recall from my Mile High Shopper is an atomizer used to delicately control the amount of vermouth, as has been already surmised. Ordering a martini “straight up” is redundant, martini’s are not to be served with ice, and if its requested that way it also comes with a complimentry dirty look, and bewildered head shake. Uke just does it to sound sophisticated and cosmopolitan and so he fits in with the other New Yorkers. 😉 I order mine simply shaken with the assumption that the bartender doesn’t know what he’s doing and will pour it “wet”, call me goofy but I kinda like the vermouth. Nor am i above ordering Gin straight up if thats what I’m hankerin’ for. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2000, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/36 "2000-01-18T15:43:00Z")
Omni: Must disagree with you. It is certainly possible to order a martini on the rocks, and I’ve never been looked at crosseyed for doing so. When I have a martini at home (while rustling up the din-din), I often make them this way. Less fuss, the drink lasts longer, and it doesn’t knock you on your ass nearly as quickly. ---
**Author:** ![SavageNarce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@SavageNarce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SavageNarce)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2000, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/37 "2000-01-18T22:12:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Genever: Dutch gin. It apparently is significantly different from the British style gin Whooh! Yes, I’d say “significantly different” is an understatement! “Worlds apart” or “Light years away” is probably more like it. I’m a Gin drinker (Tanqueray if you got it), but made the mistake of buying “Geneva gin” one time in Montreal, by accident. _It was the most foul substance I have ever come across_ and I hate to confess that I dumped the bottle down the toilet just to get rid of the stuff. Incidentally, my “Dictionary of Misinformation” notes that “Geneva gin” has nothing to do with the Swiss city, but is a corruption of someone’s “juniper”. But since regular “British” gin is flavoured with juniper, howcum “Geneva” gin tastes so different? * * * Computers in the future may weigh no more than 15 tons. -Popular Mechanics, 1949 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/38 "2000-12-06T22:02:35Z")
OpalCat said: > [@](#): > > I hate the taste of alcohol. I don’t see how anyone can drink things like martinis, let alone care how they are made… I mean to me it seems like ordering your glass of dogshit stirred clockwise instead of counterclockwise…it’s still a glass of dogshit!! I agree! Except I think it tastes more like gasoline that dogshit. (Really. I should know, I’ve gotten a taste of the stuff before. Ever been sloppy filling your gas tank, spilled some on your hands, then wiped your mouth? How about siphoning gas from the car tank to use in a lawnmower? And yes, I didn’t know proper siphoning technique.) > [@](#): > > When I drink, I hide the taste as best I can… Long Island Iced Tea, Kamikazi, Whiskey Sour, etc. 2 things. First, if you can’t stand the taste, why do you bother to drink? Do you like the puking, headaches, dizziness, and loss of judgement? (Or do you stop at “a good buzz”?) Second, you call a Long Island Ice Tea masking the taste? I like tea, too, but I prefer mine the southern way - with so much sugar it’s practically soda. I heard a LIIT tastes like tea, and almost tried one, till I figured out at the last moment they probably meant unsweetened tea - vile stuff. Ukulele Ike said: > [@](#): > > My position is: Give a four-year-old, or a Kalahari tribesman, a cup of good coffee or a glass of fine Bordeaux, and he’ll think it’s just awful. Taste must be developed. Well, not “must,” but “should.” To me that’s like smoking - vile stuff that isn’t worth the effort to get used to. “Yech, this is terrible stuff, but if I force myself to drink a gallon of it, I’ll eventually learn to like it.” A buddy of mine has a solution for icing drinks. He makes large ice cubes by partially filling a cup with water and letting it freeze. That way, he can put one large chunk of ice in the drink as opposed to a bunch of small bits. He claims with smaller surface area to volume ratio, it doesn’t dilute the beverage as much for the same chilling. Also, if you run it under the tap before adding the drink, you wash off the frost layer - same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315/39 "2000-12-06T22:31:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Irishman \* > > Ukulele Ike said: > > > [@](#): > > > > My position is: Give a four-year-old, or a Kalahari tribesman, a cup of good coffee or a glass of fine Bordeaux, and he’ll think it’s just awful. Taste must be developed. Well, not “must,” but “should.” > > To me that’s like smoking - vile stuff that isn’t worth the effort to get used to. “Yech, this is terrible stuff, but if I force myself to drink a gallon of it, I’ll eventually learn to like it.” Hmmm… a poster calls himself “Irishman” yet posts stuff like this. **shakes head** I have to agree with Ike on this one. Irishman, it’s totally NOT true that it “isn’t worth the effort to get used to.” I once disliked wine. I now find it one of the greatest pleasures in the world. Isn’t there anything in the world that you once disliked and now find yourself enjoying, even savoring? I find the more I consume something, the subtleties of the taste and texture become more familiar and more pronounced, and more enjoyable. This happens with food as well as wine - aren’t there food that you disliked as a child and now find yourself liking? I admit, I just don’t understand those who don’t savor good food and drink. For me, it’s one of the greatest pleasures in life, and I spend an exorbitant amount of time and money on it. Now hand over one o’ them Martinis. I’ll have mine with Bombay Sapphire and two garlic-stuffed olives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-the-deal-with-martinis/6315.md?page=1)