Are the Drinks Affecting My Memory?
are the drinks affecting my memory
Last week when taking a look at the Manhattan I mentioned that it formed a part of four drinks, a quadrinity if you like, that owe a fundamental part of their nature to Sweet Red Vermouth. Today’s drink is the Martinez.
All week I had this uncomfortable feeling that I had done the Martinez before, and not wanting to repeat myself, and not wanting to repeat myself, I thought I had better make sure, and it turns out that while I haven’t, as such, written about the Martinez, the origin story of the drink is essentially covered in the history of the Martini.
For completeness, here is a brief summary.
There are two competing stories for the origin of the Martinez, essentially both about the town of Martinez in California but based on travellers going in opposite directions. The first story features the legendary “Professor” Jerry Thomas, bartender at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco in the mid to late 1800s. So the story goes, a gold prospector having struck it lucky, put a gold nugget on the bar and asked Thomas to mix him a drink. As the miner was on his way to Martinez, California, Thomas called the resulting drink the Martinez. In the second story, the miner is travelling in the opposite direction and stopping for a break in a saloon bar in Martinez, he drops a sack of gold on the bar in exchange for a bottle of whiskey. Complaining that one bottle of whiskey wasn’t quite enough for the sack of gold, the barkeeper mixed him a small drink of Gin, Vermouth and bitters with an olive which was called a Martinez.
For a more in depth look, check out my Martini write up over on Substack https://ethicalmixologist.substack.com/p/one-drink-to-rule-them-all
Anyway, not wanting to just reprint a previous post, I thought we would take a bit of a dive into this most important ingredient of these classic cocktails, the Sweet Red Vermouth.
Those of you who have been following me for a while will see a familiar story here, for Vermouth was originally designed for medicinal purposes, a health tonic if you like, however, this one is notable in that we don’t have monks passing their time inventing alcoholic tonics to pass the long hours. Vermouth starts life as a simple wine, to which different manufacturers add additional alcohol, often brandy creating a ‘fortified wine’, and to this additional herbs and spices are added for flavour and sweetness as desired.
The important thing with Vermouth is that, despite its Italian origins Vermouth is the French pronunciation of the German word Wermut meaning Wormwood, an ingredient that is key to its bitter flavour.
So there you have it, an Italian drink with a German name said with a French accent!
Martinez
45 ml London Dry Gin
45 ml Sweet Red Vermouth
5ml Maraschino Luxardo
2 Dashes Orange Bitters
Instructions
Place all the ingredients in a mixing glass with ice
Stir until thoroughly chilled
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass
Garnish with orange zest expressed over the drink
I hope that is clear, and if it isn’t, then you probably need another drink.
Cheers!