If I could just have everyones attention,
I would like to talk to you about the martini. There is no drink as dignified as the imperial martini. Martini sits in its glass, forged by ancient glass blowers in the ruins of tumbled cities and mounted on the tips of flame, like a king on his throne.
Towering above the commoners in his kingdom, he oversees the other cocktails. Stinger is nothing but a stench-bearing peasant in comparison. White Russian is an ignoble serf and Black Cow a parasite-hosting beast of burden. Bloody Mary is both a waif and a wench when seated near his exalted highness. Sometimes they rise, evil rebels trying to overthrow the good king martini, but they always fail. The snotty prince Purple Hooter gave it a shot, but the people quickly realized his limited potential. Manhattan and Old Fashioned have also stormed the gates, but martini, the persistent potable, bridled the onslaught like a bandying bronco. The hammer always loses to the anvil.
Martini is also a sensual beverage. Consider the curvy nature of the martini glass. The figure of a robust woman, licentious as well as matriarchal. While Margarita is a whore, martini is a seductress.
Consider the phallic nature of the stem of the glass. Watch as the connoisseur strokes the shaft with serene glee, the way Laura Wingfield caressed the unicorn horn in The Glass Menagerie. Watch him sip the cocktail, not with the throat, or the lips, but by resting a nearly intangible puddle in the crook of the tongue. Then, like saliva from a kiss on the neck, he lets it evaporate. Compare that to the sloppy suck face of a beer guzzle, or the indifferent drag from the straw of a Salty Dog. Martini is a tongue kiss with the moon.
Grasshopper is frigid. Keoke Coffee is impotent. Martini’s sexuality is reserved. It eschews whips and chains, but will gently rub its teeth against your nipple, or bite the bottom of your lip. Rusty Nail is as sexy as your toothless grandma, bedridden with body rot, nicotine stains on her bra, crucifix on the wall, and a foul cloud of perspiration and mold lingering over the bed.
Whereas Tequila Sunrise and Pina Colada are concerned with beaches in Baja, martini is a city man. A taxi cab and museums man. Martini adores Monet, Prokofievand Hippocrates. Sea Breeze and Cape Cod dig Escher, Black Crowes, and Geraldo. Where Screwdriver and 7&7 are happy party people, chatting and mixing, mingling and juggling, martini is introspective and reflective.
“Where are the girls?” asks beer, punch and cider. “Why do we exist?” asks Martini. While White Russian, Root Beer Float and B-52 might be content to loiter with their spouses and lovers in the TV room, or at the card table, Martini is never content. It lurks around love’s corner, watching, taking notes.
And how about Olive? You don’t need to be Tennessee Williams to see the sexuality of an olive. Slick, shiny, speared by a toothpick, and stuffed with a bright red pimento, Olive lays on Martini like a mermaid on a rock, waiting for her Poseidon to come home, flowers in one hand, love in the other. Olive is an eruption of salt and gin and texture and bursts in the mouth like the “1812 Overture.” Olive is to Martini what flame is to candle.
That is why it infuriates me to see this harvest of so-called martini bars, serving their so-called martinis to so-called martini lovers. The only thing these martinis have in common with my beloved monarch is the glass. And that maddens me even more, since the only reason these glasses were even made was for martinis. You never hear of a Smith and Kerns glass, or a Cuba Libre glass, or a Greyhound glass.
And now they are being used for these...these... abominations. It’s like the Invasion of the Martini Snatchers. The real Martini fell asleep and the pods took over. The pods being such abominable creations as: The Chocolate Martini, the Orange Martini, the Mormon Martini (it looks like a glass of milk, in case there are other Mormons around), the Guys and Dolls Martini (big in Hillcrest), the Peanut Butter and Jelly Martini, the Qualcomm Gold Level Stadium Upgrade Martini (it costs 140 bucks but it’s still just gin and vermouth), and the OB Martini (the olive is stuffed with hash or magic mushrooms instead of a pimento... “Right on, dude!”).
If you look in any bar recipe book under “martini,” you will notice that there is no mention of raspberry Schnapps or whipped cream, no blenders, grenadine, or coconut. No. It will say these three things: gin, vermouth, olive. And not summer peach gin or dandelion vermouth either, and definitely not apple olives.
Gin. Vermouth. Olive.
So, please don’t restructure baseball, please don’t rezone Ocean Beach, please don’t encourage Jim Carrey, and please, please, please don’t call a Strawberry Daiquiri a martini.