Dry Martini – Levante-EMV

In reality, the Dry Martini has become the king of cocktails and, without a doubt, the most literary and cinematic. Its origins are in the United States at the beginning of the 20th or late 19th century, and it is said, although there is great confusion about it, that the name does not come from the famous brand of vermouth, but from a New York bartender named like that, that He served the cocktail, although it is also attributed to another from Boston of Hispanic origin named Martinez. Unlike the 007 variant, the classic Dry Martini is usually prepared in a mixing glass, with ice cubes, on which gin and dry white vermouth are poured. Purists recommend Noilly Prat, but the brand, like gin, is optional. An olive and a previously squeezed lemon peel are usually added to the glass, and stirred with a long spoon. Served without ice. The ratio varies, and recipes range from 50% for both drinks to a simple splash of vermouth for a slight gin flavor.

The names of celebrities who are fond of this cocktail are countless. For example, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is credited with creating the Dirty Martini variety, with a few drops of the brine from the olive pot. Lauren Bacall recalls in her aubiography Humphrey Bogart’s habit of drinking it with his friends, and Ernest Hemingway recommended 15 parts of gin to one of vermouth. Luis Buñuel writes in My Last Sigh that he preferred to soak the cubes in the dry vermouth and then throw them away before adding the gin, while Winston Churchill advised looking at the bottle of vermouth and leaving it on the fireplace before stirring the cubes only with gin. In the cinema there are endless testimonies: many will remember Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren having an unlikely Dry Martini on a hill in Hitchcock’s Birds, before the birds burst a children’s party, or Walter Hampden trying to remove an olive from a narrow boat glass to prepare the cocktail in Sabrina, by Billy Wilder.

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