News You Can Use

This entry isn't about a cocktail, but about the "stuff" we use to MAKE cocktails.  If you have any personal pride as a mixologist, then certain things have to be a part of your way of doing things:

• Cleanliness.  It's not a habit or a tradition, that bartenders are always wiping the bar, cleaning or drying glassware or putting things in order behind the bar.  Lots goes on in that space.  And anything from plain vodka, to sugary, sticky fruit juices or simple syrup can splash on the bar.  When you reach for a maraschino cherry, you want them to be there, and you shouldn't have to fish around for an olive, to complete a dry martini.  So clean, clean, clean.

• Glassware:  You can fnd the names of the different barware pieces anywhere on the internet.  But the one piece I need to straighten out is the cocktail glass.  There technically is no such thing, as a "martini glass."  The cone-shaped, stemmed glass in which a dry martini is served, is a COCKTAIL GLASS.

• Martini:  A Martini is a cocktail made with dry gin (or vodka) and dry vermouth.  A Cosmo is NOT a martini, nor is a chocolate cocktail a martini.  Let's do this again:  MARTINI = GIN OR VODKA + DRY VERMOUTH.  Period.  (And as long as I'm on the subject, the martini was NOT named for the vermouth.  It is a distant cousin of the Martinez Cocktail, a sweet, pre-Prohibition version originally made with Old Tom Gin, Sweet Vermouth, and Maraschino liqueur).

• Fruit garnishes:  Generally, citrus garnishes are applied as the cocktail is served.  It can be a peel, shave, wheel, half-wheel, or wedge.  A peel is made by THINLY peeling just the colored part of the citrus peel, from the fruit.  A wheel is a thin slice cut crossways, and a half wheel is self explanatory.  Technically, bartenders refer to ANY garnish as a "fruit."  So a "dry martini, no fruit" would mean a dry martini without an olive (or perhaps even a lemon peel).

• Stir or Shake:  If you're making a dry martini, the answer is STIR.  Shaking makes a very cold martini, but it shakes air bubbles into the drink, and tiny shards of ice make the drink look odd.  Stirring also allows the requisite amount of ice to melt (about an ounce) into the drink, taking the sharp edge off.  The ONLY - repeat ONLY - martini shaken, rather than stirred, is the Vesper, which James Bond created in Casino Royale.  It contains gin, vodka and Lillet and - as per his instructions - is shaken until very cold.  Then, it's served in a champagne coupe and garnished with a "thick peel of lemon."

• Builds:  Builds are drinks that are neither shaken nor stirred.  You "build" them, right in the glass.  A Bloody Mary is one.  An Old Fashioned is another, and so is a Caipirinha (most mixologists build these, some shake).