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Originally Posted by boar_d_laze  The stirred version is clearer but not as aromatic or flavorful. I prefer most cocktails up myself. A Negroni is no exceptoin. |
stirred or shaken, in this case, would make no difference in aroma or flavor other than your mind playing tricks on you, and usually pesky ice chips in your cockail.
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I HATE "classic" martinis. To me the ideal martini is made as follows (note the techniques involved to get the right amount of water via melted ice into the cocktail):
Prepare the shaker by filling with ice, and 2 - 3 ounces of Boodles or similar gin per drink. A larger martini looks better. A smaller one can be drunk while still cold.
Allow the shaker to sit while you prepare the (stemmed cocktail) glasses by putting a few ice cubes in each, then an ounce of Martini & Rossi or Noilly Pratt dry vermouth.
Allow the glasses to sit, while you prepare the cocktail olives by spearing them. I prefer one pimento stuffed, one anchovy stuffed, and one jalapeno stuffed on each spear.
Swirl the glasses so they're coated by ice-cold vermouth. Dump out the ice and the vermouth. The cold glass will appear frosted.
Set a prepared olive pick in each glass.
Shake the gin until the shaker is too cold to hold. Immediately strain into the glasses. Reserve a little in the froster. The gin should appear quite frosted with a very thin skin of ice on top.
After a few sips the martinis will begin to warm up and the gin will present too much of its character for many drinkers. Refresh the drinks with the reserved remainder, which will not only chill but dilute.
BDL
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well good thing you like it that way, and know how to make it that way, because it's certainly as far from classic as it get's and breaks all the rules. you rebel you!!
first, always (and i say always in a way that means, "what's kinda supposed to be done based on history, science, common sense" not in a "you better only do it this way")....always start your cocktails out in a room temp shaker glass(or tin), empty, with NO ice. Theory being you want to control the amount of dilution, if you put ice in, then pour in your spirits and the phone rings...or the floosy at the end of the bar needs her cigarette lit.....overdilution...
Second....always add your cheap ingredients first, usually vermouth or fruit juices/mixers. if you overpour or screw it up you wasted .01cents instead of .50 cents.
third, always chill your glass before you start your drink....crushed ice, or cubes and water in the glass and let it sit.
fourth, be a man, a real man, and put a little more than just a glass rinse of vermouth in a martini!!! trust me, I used to belong to that club, until someone showed me the way....
Here is what i think the problem is though withe the fading vermouth trend..... Vermouth goes bad. and rather quickly. most people don't use it much let alone refrigerate it. thus, most vermouth, even at MOST bars, is bad vermouth(bad vermouth coupled with my bad "ice" rant = bad martini)....do you have vermouth in your cabinet or fridge now? is it more than a week old? go spend 4.99 on a small bottle of martini and rossi (which is a fine mixing vermouth btw) and do a blind taste test between the week old and the fresh. then make a 2:1 martini with any sort of gin you prefer.
I
beg of you to try.
my preffered method
1oz vermouth
2oz gin (i like hendricks for just regular up martini's, but ill get into that a little more, I prefer old tom in some and plymouth in some, junipero in some too)
put both in a boston shaker glass, crack 2-3 home freezer made ice cubes with the back of a bar spoon, they dont have to shatter, even if they crack in 2 is fine, then fill the rest of the shaker with ice, stir ~30 times, don't have to be super fast, let it sit while you ask a pretty lady at the bar for her number..(15 seconds if you are good, this is called "cooking" a cocktail) .then strain with a hawthorn or julep (I prefer julep strainers on stired cocktails, but up to you) strainer into a chilled (as described above) cocktail glass. garnish with 1 of my only 3 garnishes for this type of martini, a twist (lemon), a regular plain ol cocktail olive, or a cocktail onion.
lately, i've been doing 50/50's. 1:1 gin vermouth with Dolin vermouth (extra dry or dry) and Old Tom gin. talk about a good martini!
if i choose a gin more neutral in flavor, not something cucumbery like Hendricks or crazy like Junipero, I'll choose plymouth, and do 2:1 with a dash of orange bitters (fees , or regans, or..I really like Hermes) and an orange twist.
p.s. when we start arguing about manhattans, I'm going to reccommend you go out and buy abottle of Carpano Antica Formula sweet vermouth......sure its over 20$ a bottle, but I bet you'll enjoy drinking it straight on the rocks!!
bdl - you'd like this site.
Cocktail Hacker guy pics a coctail, finds 20 ways to make it in say 20 different books, etc. then does them all and commentarys each variation.
p.p.s....dirty martini.....well, they are usually pretty **** dirty. think about the olive juice that the bartender has been most likely sticking his hands in all day to get cocktail olives out of the bin...ick. icky ick. they make it in a bottle now, but it went the same way that "sour mix" and roses lime juice went....bad...too bad to pour into a cocktail. So, just remember, if you order a dirty martini...its pretty dirty. (sans the .000001 of bars who don't stick there hands in the olive brine, and keep seperate bottles of REAL olive brine for dirty martini's...which are...in the end...another vermouth cop out!)