Does your Martini leave you 'shook’?
Is there ever a good reason to shake a Martini? Bond only does it to disguise his fragile masculinity. Here’s how to make a beautifully clear Martini which shows you have nothing to hide…
I’ve already explored the symbolic importance of 007’s signature drink in my queer re-view of Casino Royale:
Nothing sums up Bond’s performative - and conflicted masculinity - better than his Martini. Although it packs a punch in alcohol content, it’s a famously fussy, difficult drink to get right, in part because the personal preference of the drinker can make it taste totally different. Vodka, gin or both? If both, in what proportions? Wet (lots of vermouth) or dry (barely any)? Lemon peel or olive garnish? And they’re just the basics. When it comes to shaking or stirring, we all know Bond’s orientation. But shaking a Martini actually makes it more dilute, as the ice chips off and melts into the drink. In his effort to masculinise his Martini he actually makes it less ‘strong’. It’s also clearly not the drink he receives in the film of Casino Royale as the liquid is crystal clear, something you don’t get if you shake a Martini.
So how should you make a perfect Martini?
Well, everyone has their preferences and you shouldn’t let anyone dictate to you what makes a ‘proper’ Martini. It’s a learning process for all of us. That’s the appeal of the beverage: it can always be perfected. And everyone has a different palette. I’ve tried for years to get my father-in-law (a huge Bond fan) into Martinis, and he still thinks they taste like toilet clearner. I know - heresy.
I only know what I like…
For a start, I don’t fuss over the vodka. There is no need, beyond the foibles of fashion, for the vodka Martini to exist. Yes, Bond usually drank vodka in the movies but that was because of lucrative product placement deals. True, gin was well on its way out of fashion by the early 1960s (largely due to massive advertising campaigns from vodka brands like Smirnoff) but just imagine what might have happened had the cinematic James Bond been a gin drinker! The decline in gin sales could have been arrested and we wouldn't have had to wait until the last two decades for gin to be 'cool' again. Maybe.
Cool or not, gin is where it's at nowadays, as it was when Fleming sat down to his typewriter in 1953. The original Vesper Martini had a small proportion of vodka (Ian Fleming was trying to give Bond a slightly modern edge), but it was outmatched 3:1 by gin. Anyone who has read Casino Royale or seen the 2006 film adaptation knows there's a lot more to a Vesper Martini, both in terms of ingredients and its preparation. Most famously, there's an aperitif called Kina Lillet shaken into the mix. This hasn't been made for decades and the Lillet Blanc you can get (widely available, check Amazon) makes a very decent Martini, although it is a trifle sweet for my palette.
Whilst I am just as fastidious as Bond in terms of Martini preparation, I like to keep it simple. There are only two essential ingredients:
Gin
Vermouth
A garnish of some kind - typically olives or a slice of lemon peel - add a distinctly different piquancy but neither drastically alter the fundamental flavour of the drink - unless you go overboard, and this would be a waste of perfectly good gin.
Before you head out to the shops, a few words on the gin. Now that gin is definitely back 'in', there's an awful lot of snobbery around it. Most of this snobbery emanates from people who eliminate the subtle flavours of gin almost entirely by dousing it in tonic water. In other words, they don't really like gin that much but they're pretending to. Now I like tonic water, but I like gin more. A G&T in our house is usually 1:1 gin:tonic.
So what gin should you buy?
There's almost always a bottle of Bombay Sapphire chez Lowbridge-Ellis. It's unabashedly crowd-pleasing and a lovely drink on its own or splashed with tonic. But in my view, it makes a rubbish Martini.
Instead, I tend to buy a gin which is, dare I say it, a bit on the basic side. Go for something where juniper is to the fore. You don't want something with a hundred botanicals. As long as you keep it simple, and somewhere in the mid price range, you can't really go wrong. Any of these you will be able to find on supermarket shelves: Tanqueray, Hendrick's, Sipsmith. I have absolutely nothing against the cheaper end: brands like Beefeater and Gordon's (the latter was Fleming's/Bond's ingredient of choice). Supermarket own brands are usually a safe bet too, and I don't just mean M&S (which is delicious). The much vaunted ALDI £10 gin is almost worth the hype. My favourite gins for Martinis are a little harder to get but are stocked in some supermarkets: Tanqueray No. Ten (£30ish) for instance. Best of all: Brecon Botanicals (£20ish) made in Wales and available in Morrison’s across the UK, as well as other supermarkets.
Maybe I’ll change my mind one day if I ever ‘get into’ vermouth properly, but right now I'm not as fussy in my choice as 007. Noilly Prat is the posh-ish one but I use it sparingly. I find it can dominate if you're not careful and the yellow colour takes away the martini's mouth-watering clarity. A classic Martini should be clear, not orange, yellow or any other colour. The readily available Martini Bianco is a solid pick. There's a reason the brand Martini is synonymous with the Martini drink, whether Mr Alessandro Martini really did invent the Martini itself or not (like with most cocktail lore, including the many possible origins of the word 'cocktail', the jury's out).
So, when you've got your two key ingredients, what next?
Method
Put the gin in the freezer (it won’t freeze due to the alcohol content) and the Martini in the fridge (this WILL freeze and the bottle will shatter so don’t put this in the freezer!). Leave for an hour or longer. This is the approach taken at DUKE’s Bar in London, the place where Fleming decided to make the Martini Bond’s tipple of choice, so they should know best. It’s also what we call in our house the ‘Blake Lively method’ after her character in the noir-comedy A Simple Favour which has Martini-making sequences to rival anything in the 007 canon.
Chill the glass you're using by sticking it in the freezer. A classic Martini glass is very cheap from any supermarket. If you have a choice, go for the thinnest glass possible. Before sticking our glasses in the freezer we always swill cold water around the glass. This way, even if you just leave it in the freezer for a couple of minutes, it will allow a thin layer of ice to form. It keeps the liquid cool and makes it look cool too.
Pour your preferred amount of Martini into the glass. I tend to go for a 5:1 gin:vermouth ratio. E.g. 50ml:10ml. For many, this is far too much vermouth. For some, it's far too little. You will need to experiment here. Noel Coward is synonymous with the Martini. The gay playwright and wit was a great friend of Bond’s creator and Fleming himself suggsted him for the role Dr. No in the 1962 film. Coward famously said: "A perfect Martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy." Even so, he still advocated for a ‘wetter’ Martini than I prefer, with 3.7 parts gin to 1 part vermouth. The late great Roger Moore was a huge fan of the Martini, despite never ordering a Martini on screen in any of his seven Bond adventures. However, he was even stingier with the vermouth than me, recommending just swilling the glass and cocktail shaker with vermouth and tipping what didn't stick down the sink to make a very ‘dry’ Martini.
Pour in the gin. Straight on top of the vermouth.
STIR, DON'T SHAKE. I know this is 007-heresy, but don’t do it. If you don’t have the patience to wait for the gin to freeze and the vermouth to chill, you can put them both in a cocktail shaker or a large glass and stir them with large ice (the smaller surface area will resist dilution better than small ice). Remember: the only reason Fleming made Bond insist on shaking was to make what is, to all other intents and purposes a very sophisticated drink, more brutish.
Garnish. 3 olives on a stick is tradition, as is lemon peel. If you go the lemon peel route you can just slice off a piece and twist it (if it’s not too ripe or underripe) to release some oils. If you want to make the long strip of lemon seen in Bond’s glass in Casino Royale invest £5 on a citrus peeler. A surprisingly good garnish which I’ve rarely had when out (but regularly tried out at home) is lime peel. It makes a Martini very refreshing.
Drink it. Slowly. The best part. A perfectly made martini is a beautiful thing to behold. It's so simple, on the glitteringly clear surface at least. And yet, it's so easy to get it wrong. Getting it right, for your palette, might take a few attempts. But keep going. Just be warned: this is a strong drink. One is never enough and neither is two. However, three is usually too many. Except if you're James Bond, but he's a fictional character so he only has a fictional hangover to deal with.
