Mind how you go.

  The number of questions sent in was quite a surprise and I encourage you to keep them coming. The one I'll start with is the origin of the name of the Martini cocktail. However, I didn't think the answer would be so elusive when I set out to find it.

​​​​​​​  The cocktail has been around since the latter part of the eighteen hundreds and the obvious origin of the name is from the Italian company of the same name that makes the vermouth which the cocktail relies on. But things are never that simple.

How a Martini looks after you've had a few.

  Depending which recipe book or bartender's guide you look to for advice, you may find yourself ushered in the direction of Noilly Prat, a French vermouth that predates the Italian version by a few decades. This points to the possibility of some clever marketing by the Italians who managed to get the extremely popular cocktail associated with their brand, even though their vermouth might not have been the first one used. Incidentally, both Martini and Noilly Prat are now owned by Bacardi.

  The other theory for the origin of the name is Martinez, near San Francisco. It is possible the Occidental hotel in S.F. had a cocktail of that name or that it was made up by a bartender in Martinez itself. As I'm unable to furnish you with a definitive answer, I shall instead give you a few interesting bits of trivia instead. A Martini is made with gin, unless specified, and is meant to be stirred. Vodka and shaking were made popular by our favourite British spy.

  Originally, there were two parts of gin to one of the vermouth but over time the gin has become more dominant to the point that I've seen a recipe that tells the bartender to rinse the ice cubes in vermouth and tip away the excess before adding the gin. This became a running gag in the TV series of MASH, where the doctors would find ever more cunning ways to produce the driest Martini. The most memorable being where the drinker would drink a glass of chilled gin while looking at a photo of Joseph Noilly, the Frenchman who invented vermouth in 1813.

Keep the questions coming.

Kirk out

RevoltingFood.com