Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Perfect Drink

The martini is really the perfect cocktail. I'm sitting here sipping on one right now and I feel delightful. This is exactly how I make mine.

Chill a cocktail glass in the freezer
Fill a glass or shaker with ice
Add 1 part dry vermouth and 4 parts gin (i'm using tanqueray 10 right now)
With a spoon, stir for 30-45 seconds or until extremely cold
Skewer 3 green pimento stuffed olives and place them into the cocktail glass
Strain the mixture over the olives
Sip up.

I've learned a few tips that help the taste and texture of the martini.
1. Stir, do not shake. Although the James Bond cliche says otherwise, a stirred martini takes longer but is clearer and much more pleasing to the eye.
2. Start with room temperature ingredients and a chilled cocktail glass. The point of the ice is not only to cool the drink, but to add water and mellow out the harsh alcohol in the gin.
3. Olives are my preferred garnish, but a lemon peel slice instead adds a completely different but complementary character that I enjoy as well.
4. Experiment with different levels of vermouth. There is a large trend towards just glazing the inside of the glass with vermouth and tossing it out, but I realized I like the twist that it adds to the taste of the drink.

Give it a shot and enjoy.

1 comment:

Crystal said...

sounds super gross :)