Message 15493 of 39188 in General Discussion

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> ...What is the etymology of the term Very Dry Martini as referring
> to a glass of gin...
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Dr. Schuler,
You've gotten some answers to your question, which might be correct relative 
to the current concepts that are found amongst bartenders and customers, but 
there is more to it then what you have encountered so far. To understand the 
"Very Dry Martini" it is important to understand the "Dry Martini" and add to 
this an understanding of mass psychology.

While many people believe that a "dry" Martini is one which has less vermouth 
in it then a "regular" Martini, but unfortunately these people are operating 
under a severe misunderstanding... a misunderstanding which unfortunately 
leads to greater and greater levels of misunderstanding.

Let's take a brief jaunt back into history...

Originally, the cocktail known today as the "Martini" was made with gin and 
sweet vermouth. This was also back when the gin being used was "Old Tom 
Gin", which happened to contain sugar and so was in itself sweet. Onto the 
scene we then see "London Dry Gin" mak an appearance, and people started 
making their Martini's with this newer style product, they soon learned that 
from a flavor perspective "dry vermouth" (which was far less common in 
cocktail overall then sweet vermouth in those days) worked better then sweet 
vermouth. So if you wanted a cocktail that was made with London Dry Gin and 
Dry Vermouth you would ask the bartender for a "Dry Martini".

Unfortunately, it was soon after this time that the great cocktail lobotomy 
took hold across America (also known as "Prohibition"). During this time we 
lost most of our culinary perspective on cocktails. Coming out of prohibition, 
you can find numerous quotes attributed to various celebrities of the day 
which described how "they" liked their Martini's... most of these indicated 
lesser and lesser amounts (mostly none at all) of vermouth. If you look at the 
"source" of most of these quotes, you will find that virtually all of them 
come from people who were either borderline, for full blown alcoholics. Their 
tendency to lesser the vermouth in their Martini's was most likely simply an 
attempt to bump the octane rating as high as possible. Vermouth after all is a 
"wine" and so has far less alcohol in it then gin.

The "adoring public" had so much respect for these celebrities, that they 
assumed that they must know what they were talking about. And since they no 
longer contained any functional cocktail knowledge themselves, they were an 
easy mark for such false assumptions.

The modern cocktail consumer knows very little about cocktails, and rarely 
really has much consideration for the culinary quality associated with them, 
and so they are just as happy to quaff a glass of alcohol that has some level 
of "distinquished history" associated with it, even if that history is 
"post-prohibition" and bares little resemblence to anything of substance.

So yes, a "Very Dry Martini" in "todays" level of cocktail awareness 
essentially means a glass of cold vodka, but this doesn't mean that it has 
even the culinary equivelance to a Big Mac.

I'm not sure if this answers your question or not, but hopefully it does 
provide you with an understanding of the etymology of this term.

-Robert
 www.DrinkBoy.com