I don’t know why I find the subject of James Bond and Martinis so fascinating, but I do. In that spirit, I pass along this sage advice from “United Airlines Sommelier” (who knew!) Doug Frost . . .
“Shaken, not stirred” is the phrase that has launched a thousand bar shifts, but it leaves me cold. I was taught that a martini should be stirred. In the words of King Cocktail Dale DeGroff, “Stirring makes a martini silky. Shaking a martini makes it frothy, and that’s not how you want a martini to taste.”
So despite Ian Fleming’s worst advice, I have always stirred my martinis. I’m a fan of “seasoning” the mixing glass with dry vermouth—you pour some over the ice, stir it, and then dump the excess liquid. Now pour in your gin (or vodka, if you must be contemporary), stir till it’s cold, and strain into the most beautiful of glasses, the martini or cocktail glass. Yes, yes, I know that people say you’re supposed to wave the vermouth bottle at your martini glass to have a “dry” martini, but I have no idea what those people are talking about, and neither do they. It’s the herb-rich, slightly bitter, “dry” character of dry vermouth that makes the dry martini so dry.
As for the concept of shaken writ large . . .
That’s not to say that all drinks are supposed to be shaken. Bloody marys, for one, become just plain messy if you try to shake them. And though the rattle of rocks against a tin cup is a great advertisement, customers will still perk up when a skilled bartender “rolls” a bloody mary, pouring the drink back and forth between two glasses to mix it perfectly and smoothly.
Now you know. Let the debating begin. Better yet, and I say this knowing that as I write, it’s nearly Friday and that means mayhem in the markets, let the drinking begin!
Tags: Shakennot Stirred, Bond Martini, Doug Frost, Decision Making
