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Saturday 2 April 2016

Martini (cocktail)

People started drinking a drink called a "martinez" (half gin, half dry vermouth) in the 1860s.

The first mention of the word "Martini" was in the 1888 New And Improved Illustrated Bartenders Manual by Harry Johnson. The recipe consisted in part of half a wine glass of Old Tom Gin and a half a wine glass of vermouth.

In 1912 a well-known bartender Signore Martini di Arma di Taggia, of the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, who was renowned for his expertise in mixing drinks, perfected the Martini cocktail.

By 1922 the Martini reached its most recognizable form in which London dry gin and dry vermouth are combined at a ratio of 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes, with the optional addition of olives or aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass.



President Franklin Roosevelt mixed martinis with great enthusiasm. His cocktails included unconventional ingredients such as anisette or fruit juice. The dirty martini was allegedly one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's only good martini recipes.

Humphrey Bogart's attributed last words are "I should never have switched from scotch to martinis."

Ian Fleming's fictional spy James Bond sometimes asked for his vodka Martinis to be "shaken, not stirred," following Harry Craddock's The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), which prescribes shaking for all its Martini recipes.

For an aperitif, Queen Elizabeth II likes a dry martini, stirred not shaken, finished with a twist of lemon rind.

The olive or lemon twist garnish is what makes the Martini Cocktail, shaken or stirred!

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