Мартини: Классика коктейльного искусства

Cocktail made with gin and vermouth

The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive and/or a lemon twist. Over the years, the martini has become one of the best known mixed alcoholic beverages. A common variation, the vodka martini, uses vodka instead of gin for the cocktail's base spirit.

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 orange or aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass. Over time the generally expected garnish became the drinker's choice of a green olive or a twist of lemon peel. A dry martini is made with little to no vermouth. Drier variations can go to 8:1, 12:1, 15:1 (the "Montgomery", after British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's supposed penchant for attacking only when in possession of great numerical superiority). In 1966, the American Standards Association (ASA) released K100.1 1966, "Safety Code and Requirements for Dry Martinis", a tongue in cheek account of how to make a "standard" dry martini. The latest revision of this document, K100.1 1974, was published by American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the successor to ASA, though it is no longer an active standard.

The traditional martini comes in a number of variations. A perfect martini uses equal amounts of sweet and dry vermouth. Luis Buñuel used the dry martini as part of his creative process, regularly using it to sustain "a reverie in a bar". He offers his own recipe, involving Angostura bitters, in his memoir. Some recipes advocate the elimination of vermouth altogether; the playwright Noël Coward is credited with the assertion that "a perfect Martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy." Similarly, the Churchill martini supposedly favored by Winston Churchill uses no vermouth, and is prepared with gin straight from the freezer and a "glance" at a bottle of vermouth, or a "bow in the direction of France". A wet martini contains more vermouth; a 50 50 martini uses equal amounts of gin and vermouth. An upside down or reverse martini has more vermouth than gin. A dirty martini contains a splash of olive brine or olive juice and is typically garnished with an olive. An extra dirty martini typically contains twice the amount of olive brine or juice. A direct martini or naked martini is a regular martini, but prepared by storing the gin in a freezer and then pouring the gin directly into the serving glass with the vermouth instead of stirring it with ice first. This method allows the drink to be served very cold but without the dilution that the traditional stirring method adds. This style of martini is mainly associated with and popularized by Dukes Hotel Bar in London. A martini may also be served on the rocks—that is, with the ingredients poured over ice cubes and served in an old fashioned glass. A Gibson is a standard dry martini garnished with cocktail onions instead of olives. The Yale Cocktail is a 6:1 martini with equal parts vermouth and either crème de violette or Creme Yvette, which impart a blue color, and Angostura bitters.

A vodka martini is a cocktail made with vodka and vermouth, a variation of a martini. A vodka martini is made by combining vodka, dry vermouth and ice in a cocktail shaker or mixing glass. The ingredients are chilled, either by stirring or shaking, then strained and served "straight up" (without ice) in a chilled cocktail glass. The drink may be garnished with an olive, a "twist" (a strip of lemon peel squeezed or twisted), capers, or cocktail onions (with the onion garnish specifically yielding a vodka Gibson).

The fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond is famously known for ordering a "vodka martini, shaken, not stirred". The phrase first appears, yet without the specification for "vodka", in the fourth book of the Bond novel series by Ian Fleming in Diamonds Are Forever (1956), but the Bond character is not the one that says it. On the American television show I Dream of Jeannie, Jeannie makes vodka martini gush from a rock in the desert for Captain Nelson, calling it his "favorite potion" (though at the time he needed water). The Australian writer Frank Moorhouse, (famous for creating complex female protagonists such as Edith in Dark Palace), was an uncompromising Martini enthusiast. His novels and short stories are often punctuated with extensive explanations of proper and improper ways to make a Martini. Moorhouse's book, Martini: A Memoir (2005), considers the cocktail as a way of being and a symbol for aspects of his own life. It also includes handy instructions for mixing the perfect Martini. On the American sitcom, M*A*S*H, the main character Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce, has a gin distillery in his tent, which he uses to make martinis, in almost every episode.