Alright guys I'm shutting down, have a great martini-filled weekend!
I picked up the fixin's at lunch, so we shall see. Have a good one, biebs.
Vermouth too? If so, which brand?
Got the Noilly Prat but may have f'd up. They were out of the dry and had only the extra dry and the rouge. After speaking with the store help I bought the rouge. He didn't make the extra dry sound so good.
I agree... You fucked up. I like extra dry. In fact even the Tribuno I bought was extra dry. The rouge is for Manhattans. You might have to go spend another $7.50 to try again. As long as Raz doesn't see your post, you shouldn't catch too much shit.
<<banging head on desk>> The rouge and amber are sweet and semi-sweet vermouths. Dry. You want dry. Original dry, extra dry, whatever. And don't listen to the sales guy. About anything.
DOH! Oh well Mark, you almost got away with it.
Guess my cocktail noobness is showing. When I saw they were out of the Noilly Prat dry and the dumbass said the extra dry would "pucker my mouth" (his exact words), I panicked. FML.
It is true that the Extra Dry is dumbed-down for the American market. Yes, it will make you pucker if you drink it as an aperitif, but when's the last time you heard of Americans drinking vermouth as an aperitif? It's going into gin, in low proportions. The Original Dry is better, but if extra dry is what they've got, get the extra.
All this, of course, speaks to the fact that Americans are stupid about Martinis, but it's the fault of the Brits. The Martini was invented in the US, and the most reliable versions of the lore of its origin suggest that it descends from the Martinez, which was made with both dry and sweet vermouth in the typically convoluted fashion that was the style when mixed drinks first began to become popular. The snobbish Brits, while they bought into the cocktail craze as much as anyone, sniffed at anything that was invented in the US, especially if it impinged upon the purity of their native hooch - Gin. Hence, you get Winston Churchill blathering upon making martinis by glancing at a nearby bottle of vermouth while pouring ice-cold gin. American servicemen stationed in Britain got hipped to the "dry martini" during World War II and loved the taste, which had nothing to do with the drink being a better cocktail without Vermouth, but everything to do with the fact that the Brits had superior Gin to anything popularly available in the states during the Great Depression and its immediate aftermath. So we've enobled the
stupid notion that the best Martini has as little Vermouth as possible, ideally none. 'Tis a crock of shite, and it stinketh.
If you like Gin straight, then drink it straight and enjoy it and don't fuck around with pretending to have a cocktail. A Martini is supposed to have Vermouth in it, and you're supposed to be able to taste the Vermouth. This isn't rocket surgery. You don't order a shot of Tequila and call it a "dry Margarita." You don't order a shot of Rum and call it a "dry Cuba Libre" or a "dry Mojito". You don't order a shot of Rye and call it a "dry Manhattan." That would all be pointless...as pointless as a Martini with no Vermouth.
Yeah, yeah...you woke me up.
