Posted on 01/10/2009 2:17:28 PM PST by 1rudeboy
Martini drinkers are conservatives. Not necessarily politically, but in temperament: They abjure fad and fashion in drink, hewing to the Platonic form of the cocktail. They would stand athwart history yelling Stop -- if yelling weren't inconsistent with the proper comportment of a Martini drinker. They dislike change. It is with some trepidation, then, that I bring what is almost certain to be received as appalling news: Noilly Prat, the dry vermouth considered by many devotees to be the only choice for a well-made Martini, is changing its U.S. formula.
"Noilly Prat is a necessary component of a dry martini," wrote the novelist and Martini connoisseur W. Somerset Maugham in 1958. He gave the French vermouth such a formidable endorsement that the company would, for years, devote full-page magazine advertisements to quoting his claim that, without Noilly Prat, "you can make a side car, a gimlet, a white lady, or a gin and bitters, but you cannot make a dry martini."
Maugham's digression into the essentiality of Noilly Prat comes from an essay in which Maugham is exploring a Hindu-inspired notion of man's fallen nature. "Man is born to sin," he writes, and "he would not be a man if he were devoid of evil." To flesh out his point, Maugham argues that "Evil is a necessary component of him just as (if I may be permitted a flippant comparison) Noilly Prat is a necessary component of a dry martini. . . ." The comparison may be flippant, but it does have a certain resonance. Just as evil is necessary to man, vermouth has come to be seen as a necessary evil in Martinis.
The question is, just how evil is the new Noilly Prat?
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I will assume you mean Bombay Sapphire.
No, the QM went to the Dry Martini Refuge in the Sky at the age of 101.
Bombay on the rocks with a twist of lemon ... use to be my drink of choice. The Queen mother died a few years ago ... she was, I believe, a centurion.
Okay, I’ll go ahead and say it ... gin is nasty. Vodka rules. Vodka martinis, very dirty in terms of olive brine, are awesome.
“Vodka martini drinkers find an interior decorating thread,”
Got a link? ;oD
And then there’s the “McGee” made with Plymouth Gin. It’s sort of a martini.
Fill an old fashioned glass to the two-thirds line with cracked ice. Slosh dry sherry into glass. Swiftly, with strainer across top of glass, dump the sherry.
Fill to the ice level with Plymouth Gin (imported). Rub lemon peel around inside of rim, pinch some floating beads of citrus oil on the surface of the drink.
Throw away the peel.
Bond routinely drank Smirnoff in the movies. He drank Gordon’s in the books.
Whiskey sours are great.
To truely appreciate a good martini, one has to alternate a good gin with a cheap, crappy gin. Why? You develop a taste for the botanicals that are used to in the gin. The correct amount of vermouth (at least an eyedrops worth, less than a tablespoon-depends on the gin) also brings out these flavors. I wish people would understand that.
Yes, Manhattans are nice as well, though I really do prefer my Bourbon all by its lonesome.
My favorite cocktail is probably a Rusty Nail though—blended Scotch and Drambuie.
I was wondering if you’d make this thread.
Back at ya.
I do believe that one is brandy.
There’s Bombay (the original), then Tanqueray, then there’s everything else.
Same holds true for Bloody Marys, now that I think about it . . . .
>>Slosh dry sherry into glass. Swiftly, with strainer across top of glass, dump the sherry.
Oh the humanity! I enjoy a dry fino (dry sherry), slightly chilled. In fact I have a bottle of Tio Pepe chilling right now.
Amen. Somebody brought Plymouth over for Christmas (I think) last year and even my dad wouldn't drink it. Blech
How is Hendricks? I see that next to my Tullamore Dew at the liquor store and often wonder if it would make a good martini or G&T.
The Queen Mum was a Roman soldier?
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