Message 8820 of 22774 in Behind the Bar

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the other 
> recipe they had in the book was 2 oz whiskey, 6-8 drops of sweet 
> vermouth, no mention of bitters,  stir and strain into a martini 
> glass and garnish with the cherry. So I think I'm going to up the sw 
> vermouth a bit and try it that way, with the bitters added.  I don't 
> like manhattans, so am relying on others  suggestions, so thanks for 
> the recipes.


Grrrr, this is the thing that drives me nuts about some books/tenders, the way 
things mutate over time and a change in one drink leads to a change in another 
one for completely wrong reasons.  In this case I mean the trend in drinking 
Martinis with small amounts of dry vermouth, Mixmaster is correct that this 
should not be extrapolated to Manhattan pouring.  

While we're on the subject I think you should note that most people who order 
dry and extra dry martinis are ones ordering VODKA Martinis.  It's pretty much 
gotten to the point where I don't even touch the vermouth when making a Vodka 
Martini.  I suppose you could use a drop to season your ice (and than discard 
before pouring the vodka) or swirl it in the glass before pouring the chilled 
vodka, but I don't think it's worth messing with.  

That being said, I am very liberal with the dry vermouth when making a proper 
martini, a GIN Martini.  Well, I pour it about 6:1 and then give it a long 
stir.  It's funny though, people are so used to thinking that "it isn't cool 
to pour vermouth" that the servers are shocked when they see me invert the dry 
vermouth and really get some into the drink!  The crucial thing to realize 
here is that gin is a powerfully flavored spirit with a lot of herbal and 
botanical complexity, the dry vermouth is what tames it and makes the king of 
all cocktails such an incredible sensation to taste.  They belong together, do 
very well together.  Things got wierd when people who didn't find gin 
palatable substitued vodka in this cocktail.  Vodka being practically neutral 
in flavor, a little dry vermouth (or anything) goes a long way flavorwise.  
Some people order their gin martinis dry too which is just a matter of taste 
(although sometimes I suspect that they've mistakently applied the trend of 
vodka martini drinkers to gin martinis) but it shouldn't be "6-8 drops" as a 
standard pour.  I'd really love to see people do a blind taste test with 
martinis made with 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 oz. dry vermouth coupled with 2 oz. gin 
and see what happens!

So my point is that it is important to understand where the trends came from 
and what is going on in the cocktail mixer.  Sweet vermouth and whiskey do 
very well together (again, the strong flavors of the rye or bourbon are 
softened by the vermouth), some recipes even call for a 2:1 ratio although as 
I wrote above I don't use quite that much.  But don't let this "vermouth is 
bad" mindset that is so common infect your approach to cocktails.  Try to 
understand how each component of the recipe contributes to the drink from a 
culinary point of view.  

Sorry if this was overlong but we're talking about the drinks that a 
bartender is judged by and there is just so much misinformation about them 
floating around out there.  I actually won't order Manhattans in too many 
places because I hardly ever get them made as described previously in this 
thread.