What a Girl's Gotta Do

Warning: Heather got out of the kitchen and made some cocktails. This means the following blog is written with less cocktail expertise then when Will writes it. Explanations of ice usage and shaking methods might be a little more elementary then usual. Just smile at her and nod.

Will's been a bit busy lately. There's been some late nights at work, we've had some nights out with friends, and as a result his cocktail shaker has been looking a little sad and lonely. This past weekend with Will working and my adored Stef in town, we were short two pre-dinner drinks. I stared at the shaker suspiciously. It's not that I've never made cocktails before, I have. It's just, I was in college. Or at best in the middle of an internship. The "cocktails" I made then tending to involve thinks like soda, various shanaps, and tons of cranberry juice. Then I met Will and we've had an understanding with our grown up existence: I make fantastic food, and I never want for Gimlets and Manhattans. I haven't stooped to mixing a Midori Sour in years. Besides that, Stef and I are totally nerds for the early literary drinkers, and if Dorothy Parker didn't drink it, we're not all that interested. And why mess around, I thought, why not bring out the big guns, the classic cocktail. Two Martini's coming up.

Martini, a cocktail made up of two ingredients and a garnish, is actually more complicated then it sounds. As Will talked about when blogging about our Christmas Cocktail Party, there is the option of vodka or gin, there is the option of shaking or stirring, and there are the garnishes of olive, twist, or even cocktail onions. According the Savoy Cocktail book, our go to for drinks of the 1920's varitey, depending on whether you were making a dry or sweet martini you would pick Italian or French vermouth. As all we had in stock was Martini and Rossi, dry martini's it was.

"We could just have wine," Stef said, as we started yet another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But by this point I was determined. I was a grown, capable woman, the type who could bake an egg and roll her own pasta. I could make a damn cocktail. Hell, I could make a damn cocktail while wearing stilettos thank you very much. This may have resulted in much giggling and me actually wearing stilettos while fixing the drinks. God bless girls weekend.

Stef and I had varying tastes. I am a fan of extremely chilled vodka, Stef prefers the more potent flavor of gin. We agree on the superiority of twists over olives. Cutting my twist created a few freaky curls of lemon peel, but a video from CHOW helped things along.

One recipe called for whacking the ice with a spoon before dropping it into the shaker. I'm not sure entirely why one does this, but I've seen bartenders in places fairly serious about their cocktails do it. And I was a serious sophisticated woman. In heels. And that "THWACK" makes a great sound. I considered the less James Bond approach of stirring the drinks, but if I was going to be teetering around my apartment in heels, shaking was the much more fun options. Advice from The Modern Girl's Guide to Life (a book that was a lifesaver when I was 23 and didn't know how to make a basic cream sauce or get a stain out) said that a martini should be shaken for at least 10 seconds. A Rachel Maddow video for Grub Street I had seen instructed that when one was shaking a cocktail, it should be shaken until it makes your hands hurt a bit from the cold, and then given a few shakes more. This also made a very satisfying sound.

Shaken Martini with a Twist for Confident, Fabulous Women

Ingredients:

-4 or 5 large ice cubes

-2 oz chilled vodka or gin

-A dash of vermouth

-Twist of Lemon Peel

Directions:

Take each ice cube and give it a whack with a tablespoon, breaking it into somewhat smaller pieces. Place the ice in a shaker and add the liquor of choice and the vermouth. Shake sharply until just past the hurting point, and strain into martini glass. Drop lemon peel into glass. Serve.

Again, variations are ubiquitous, shunned in some circles, embraced in others. But if you are a confident, fabulous woman, make what you want and screw the naysayers. You probably look better in your shoes then they do anyway.

Olive or Twist

In the week or so leading up to the cocktail party we threw this past Saturday, we gradually picked up some essentials. As the bar master of the household, it was my job to decide what the loose drink menu is to be. The decision was martinis, gimlets and manhattans with battery of basic mixers and special requests invited.

As readers of past blogs may know, I likes me a good vodka martini. I find gin to be too floral and medicinal for my taste; it's like drinking aftershave. And who among us hasn't tried taking a swig of aftershave. We all get curious. Martini purists will argue that a vodka martini is not a martini, but these people drink aftershave--you can't trust people like that.

Another point of contention is the garnish. I go with a twist of lemon. Always have. I don't hang out with people who order martinis so I just kind of assumed that people do what I do and get martinis with twists. In my mind, the olive had fallen by the wayside--a forgotten relic of a simpler time.

When Heather and I were in Whole Foods buying supplies, she suggested that perhaps we buy olives if martinis are on the menu. I thought it was a fine idea. I didn't think people would want them but I thought it would lend our party some credibility. Since neither Heather nor myself drinks martinis with olives, we didn't know whether to get pitted or non-pitted green olives. We didn't even know if they should be stuffed with anything. We erred on the safe side and got the non-pitted ones. It was the wrong choice but easily correctable. Before the party, I spent a little time pitting olives and placing them in a ramekin as well as cut plenty of citrus.

One of the first cocktails I mixed was for myself. It was a vodka martini with an olive. I took the trouble to pit them, I'd be damned if they didn't get some use. Plus I'd get to feel cool--like Cary Grant or something. Well wouldn't you know it, every single one of my guests that ordered a martini from me took theirs with an olive. Without exception. Not one person took a twist. We were all like a gaggle of Cary Grants.

Midway though the evening, I had to suck it up, get out the pitter and pit more olives because of the demand. But the effort was well worth the knowledge I obtained. There is a grassroots clamor for olives that I was not aware of. People like their vodka slightly salty rather than slightly tart. It was like a crazy sociological experiment. The cost of my misapprehension is a fridge full of sliced lemon.