# That beautiful icy mist in a professionally made Martini

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-beautiful-icy-mist-in-a-professionally-made-martini/248537>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 3, 2004, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-beautiful-icy-mist-in-a-professionally-made-martini/248537 "2004-06-03T23:55:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-beautiful-icy-mist-in-a-professionally-made-martini/248537/1 "2004-06-03T23:55:07Z")

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Almost always, when I have a Martini in a bar, there’s a beautiful icy mist floating in the drink. Sometimes it actually seems to be floating slightly below the surface of the drink. How do bartenders do this? It never happens if I try to mix one at home.

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**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-beautiful-icy-mist-in-a-professionally-made-martini/248537/2 "2004-06-03T23:58:20Z")

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If you shake the thing, hard, in a martini shaker, the ice shatters and fragments. When you pour it through a strainer, only the little tiny sparkly bits make it through.

This is why a connoisseur always demands that his martini be . . . shaken, not stirred.

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**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-beautiful-icy-mist-in-a-professionally-made-martini/248537/3 "2004-06-04T01:38:43Z")

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I think part of it is the ice in bars/restaurants is already smaller (from a machine) than your ice at home (from the tray/icemaker) so that it breaks easier. The other part of it is they use that strainer with the curly wire around the edge (or a slightly smaller glass inside the shaker) which lets smaller pieces of ice through. I know at home I use the kind of shaker with the strainer built-in as holes in the top, which are way too small to let any ice through. Hmm. I’m going to change that, I think!