Downtown Luxury Slum

When I’m feeling extra sophisticated, I transform into a dame right out of a black and white movie. In his role, my husband says to the bartender, “the lady will have a martini.” And then a martini appears. But in case you don’t have a dashing escort to procure your cocktails, here’s how to order a martini and answer all the clarifying questions that inevitably follow.

Basic Martini Recipe

Ingredients:

• Gin or vodka
• Dry vermouth
• Optional: bitters
• Optional: olive brine
• A martini glass or rocks glass
• Garnish: lemon twist or olives or cocktail onions

Directions:

1. Place some amount of gin or vodka, vermouth, and optional ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until cold. Or place gin or vodka, vermouth, and optional ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until cold.
2. Strain into a chilled martini glass or chilled rocks glass with ice.
3. Garnish with lemon twist or olives or cocktail onions or a combination of the above.

So as you can see, there are a lot of choices to be made resulting in different variations of the drink, some of which will be pleasant and some of which are bound to be quite yucky.

How to Order a Martini

Choose the Type of Spirit

When you order, specify vodka martini or gin martini. If you don’t specify, they might ask, or they might just assume gin since that’s the correct answer. Gin adds some botanical flavors to the drink, while vodka will result in a cleaner, more neutral flavor.

Choose the Brand of Spirit

If you don’t specify and they don’t ask, the bartender will choose for you. People who know these kinds of things suggest a London Dry Gin such as Beefeater, Sipsmith, Haymans, or Bombay Sapphire. These gins have more classic juniper notes as opposed to newer gins which have more bold botanical flavors. If you want vodka, the experts say go for Stoli Elit, Ketel One, or Absolut.

Choose How Much Spirit

If you don’t specify, you can probably expect the ratio of spirit-to-vermouth to be somewhere between 2:1 and 5:1 but it will really depend on the bartender. The dry vermouth adds gentle aromatics to the martini, which you may or may not want. So here’s how you specify:

• Bone-dry: made with no vermouth.
• Extra-dry: made by simply rinsing the glass in vermouth before pouring it out.
• Dry: made with less dry vermouth than the bartender would normally be inclined, probably 5:1 to 8:1 spirit-to-vermouth.
• Wet: made with more dry vermouth than the bartender would normally be inclined, probably 2:1 or 1:1 spirit-to-vermouth. It may be helpful to specify the exact ratio you want.
• Perfect: made with 4:1:1 spirit-to-dry vermouth-to-sweet vermouth, resulting in a sweeter drink.
• 50/50: made with equal parts spirit and vermouth.
• Reverse: made with 1 part spirit to 2 parts vermouth, resulting in a much less boozy drink.

Choose Additional Ingredients

Bitters were common in martini recipes way back in the 1800s, but for whatever reason, they disappeared as an ingredient sometime before I was born. But now some bartenders have started including them again. This is not something they will generally ask about if you don’t specify. So if you have a preference, specify it, otherwise it’ll be up to the bartender.

The other common additional ingredient is olive brine. It adds a ton of salt and makes the drink feel smoother and less boozy. Here’s how to specify your preference for that:

• Dirty: made by adding some olive brine to the martini or sometimes by replacing some or all of the vermouth with olive brine. If you didn’t specify gin, bartenders will often use vodka for a dirty martini.
• Filthy: made with even more olive brine, possibly as much as 1:1 spirit-to-brine.

Choose How It Gets Mixed

Shaken or stirred? The default for a standard martini is for it to be stirred so it ends up less diluted. But if you want it diluted, or you’re having vodka which tastes like nothing anyway, or you want your drink extra cold, you can get it shaken.

Choose How It Gets Served

Again, the default is for a martini to be served in a martini glass. Obviously. So if you don’t specify, that is normally how it would get served. But I had a martini unexpectedly served to me on the rocks at a fancy hotel in Jakarta and it was quite enjoyable also. If you want something other than the default, here’s how you specify:

• On the rocks: served in a rocks glass, over ice. This will keep the drink cold while slowly diluting it and making it last longer.
• Up: served in a martini glass. This is the default so you shouldn’t need to specify.
• Neat: served in a martini glass without having been stirred with ice. I don’t know why you would want this, unless maybe your teeth are sensitive to cold.

Choose Garnishes

If you order a dirty martini, it’ll be garnished with olives but otherwise, you’ll want to specify your preference. You can obviously use plain English to ask for what you want, but here’s how to specify garnishes like the sophisticated person you are:

• Clean: served without any garnishes.
• Gibson: This is actually the name a martini that is garnished with cocktail onions. So instead of ordering a martini, you’d order a Gibson and specify all of your preferences.
• With a twist: served with a lemon twist.

So if you can remember all of that, you will be able to confidently order a martini.