The "Perfect" Martini

Ingredients

• 4 oz London Dry Gin
• 1 Olive
• 1 drop Dry Vermouth

Preparation

Into a standard martini shaker filled with fresh-from-freezer (from filtered water) ice cubes (not craked or crushed), drip in (use spoon held with the forefinger over the vermouth bottle opening to control amount) as little vermouth as possible onto the ice cubes.* Immediately strain out the liquid assuming you added more than one (1) drop (Alternatively, you can add the vermouth by spraying the ice cubes once with the martini mister. You want one drop of vermouth total). Pour four (4) ounces of chilled Tanqueray gin into the shaker, and gently shake or stir ~10-15 seconds.** Let stand a few seconds and strain into a straight-up frosted martini glass containing one (only one) large Santa Barbara olive.*** Use the spoon or a stirrer to swirl the olive around a bit to blend a hint of the olive flavor into the drink. That is my perfect martini. *Italian Martini-Rossi dry vermouth or French Noilly Prat (I think that they both might be owned by Bacardi). Either are fine. **Tanqueray 94.6 proof doubly-distilled (in Scotland). I prefer this (cost, taste) to the quadruply-distilled No. Ten, which is also perfectly satisfactory. Store in refrigerator (38 deg F (~4 deg C) (Important). I have flirted with many types of gin (Bombay, Beefeaters, Gordons and many others). In my opinion, none measure up to the taste of Tanqueray dry. I will describe a second type of martini below which uses Bombay Sapphire gin. ***Santa Barbara large Sevillano olive hand-stuffed with a Habanero pepper - very hot. A large pimento-stuffed olive (Haddon House or other) can be substituted or other Santa Barbara Olive Company olives can also be used. Some don't like it hot.

Description

As I am rapidly approaching my 66th year on this planet, I am reminded of another's 66th birthday in the spring of 1978 (actually May 22) and my opportunity to teach the late, great Professor H. C. Brown the fine points of making the perfect martini. While I doubt that he ever used the instructions which I gave him (he preferred a glass of beer), it was a truly delightful experience because he asked me many questions during our conversation to make certain that I had carefully read more...considered every aspect of the process in ultimate detail. Since I am sending this note to several non-chemists, I should mention that Herbert C. Brown was my post-doctoral research advisor at Purdue University from 1977-1979, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with G. Wittig), and the person who most shaped my career in science. He was my third parent, passing from us on December 19, 2004. My association with the martini began when I was in my early teens and my parents and I were on one of three (only) vacations in my childhood. We traveled from NW Iowa to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to visit some friends of my parents who took us to a spectacular restaurant "Chalet on the Lake" which overlooked Lake Michigan (It evidently has gone out of business as I can't find it on the web). When the waiter (black tie) asked me for my drink order, I asked for one of those drinks that the people near us were having (martinis). He said that I wasn't old enough so I ordered a 7-UP. My mother ordered a gin martini and when it came, she traded me for my 7-UP saying that I should try the martini (she was a true experimentalist). As she had predicted, I thought that it tasted like anti-freeze, asking my mother to return my 7-UP. I was 21 when, as a bartender in college, I tried my second martini at the suggestion of one of my former English professors. It was better, but lacked the subtleties which make it the eloquent drink that it is. In the years which followed, I believe that I have mastered the art of creating the perfect martini in a reproducible manner. Every aspect of the process has been rigorously examined. I will now freely pass this information along to all of you for you to do with what you wish on the occasion of my 6th eleven birthday (JRR Tolkien). The method produces a very dry martini. I experimented with simply adding 6-10 drops of vermouth to a bottle of Tanqueray and putting it into the freezer. I would pour the cold mixture into my martini glass which contained one olive and that was it. However, it was too strong to really enjoy. I no longer use this technique, but rather mix the chilled (refrigerated only) gin with vermouth and ice. It is a better ritual. If you use unchilled gin, it melts too much ice and the martini is too dilute to really enjoy. To paraphase Robert Mitchum in The Winds of War: "The perfect martini tastes like a cloud!" Similarly, if one uses more than one olive, it compromises the taste. One is enough without the extra juice. If you forget to frost the glass, you have to drink it faster so that it doesn't lose its chill. I add the olive first to avoid getting any extra juice from the olive liquid into the drink. This way if there is liquid in the glass with olive, you can remove it before straining in the drink. You should stir the olive around a bit if you wish to mix in its flavor. The olive should be eaten after the drink is finished so that the pepper reminds you that one is enough. An alternative to the above martini was introduced to me in the late 1990s by Dr. Joe Barendt (formerly General Manager of Callery, now C.O.O. of Chiral Technologies). It is called the Blue Moon (or Monterrey Bay) Martini and is made exactly as the above substituting Bombay Sapphire gin, Blue Curacao liquor and a twist of lemon (except added last with a twist over the surface of the drink in the glass) in place of the Tanqueray, vermouth and olive, respectively. For the chemists out there, Beer's Law tells you by the right color that you have the correct amount of Curacao - it should be pale aquamarine. So on this March 2nd (my 66th) and on May 22th (Brown's 98th), I will be celebrating with my perfect martini. I should mention that even last year I took a bottle of Tanqueray gin from Atlanta to Hyderabad, India so that George Kabalka (he prefers vodka), Akira Suzuki, Karl Matos and Ei-ichi Negishi could help me celebrate my 65th birthday in style with a real martini. I will close with one more quote from the great Frank Sinatra who said; "I feel sorry for people who don't drink. They have to wake up each day knowing that that's the best that they will feel all day." However, these days I'm trying to follow the advice of the great chemist, friend and 1990 Nobel laureate, Professor E. J. Corey, who recommended that I have no more than two (2) cocktails per week. My best to you all - John    (hide)