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Subject: Re: martini
From: apetail
Posted: Sun Feb 15. 2009, 10:14 UTC
Followup to: "Re: martini"  by Handsome Matt  (Sun Feb 15. 2009, 05:14 UTC)
> In that vein, it could be quite possible that given the proper ratios 
> of gin, ice, and mixers, shaken in a specific way, one could shake 
> gin without bruising it.

If there is any such thing which is to be called the bruising of a liquid, for 
instance dilution, creation of ice shards or aeration, than it would have to 
be said that it is the entire drink which is being bruised and not, 
specifically, the gin which is only part of the whole mixture.


Two examples of something in which it is little argued whether they can be 
bruised or not are fruit and meat. Fruit can become bruised upon stress. The 
structure of the fruit tissue will be damaged and the fruit will taste 
remarkably different. It will be soft and certain enzymatic processes, e.g. 
browning reactions, have occured because certain enzymes can be present in the 
cell plasma while they normally aren't. 

That's how normal people make use of the term bruised. Now, if a risotto is 
created in a wrong manner do we call it a bruised risotto?

Two things which play a role in the most common definition of bruising are 
stress and cell damage. A soft and brown banana for instance, is not a clear 
example of bruising. It is aging which causes the banana to become brown. 
Apples which become soft during storage at low oxygen levels could be called 
being bruised as they are under some kind of stress. 

A liquid can be under several forms of stress during shaking. While there 
isn't really any cell damage and structural damage to the liquid it might be 
possible to call it bruising if we loosen the definition or if we use the term 
bruising only as a metaphor or analogy.   

Do we have to call it being bruised if this sort of stress makes the liquid 
taste different? Maybe yes if it would cause some damage. But dilution isn't 
really a sort of damage. One could easily well shake a martini for a shorter 
period of time or use colder ingredients to create a martini with less 
dilution such that it wouldn't differ from a stirred martini in that fashion. 
Dilution is also not an irreversible sort of damage. One could add more gin 
afterwards to recover the ratio between spirit and water. Some people claim 
that they can taste a difference between a shaken martini and a stirred 
martini but this may be just the dilution rate which differs between the two 
different methods of preparation. Shaking does not need to do something 
harmful which is to be associated with bruising.

In martini language bruised is just a pompous term for too diluted. Burnt 
would be a better term. It would link with the analogy of baking which is a 
good thing but not if it is done too much. Bruised is probably first coined by 
those people who are paying too much attention to some sort of perfect but 
fragile dilution rate. They would dramatize the slightest dilution in order to 
sound interesting and knowledgeable among their friends. The people who make 
use of the term bruised are those people who try to appear knowledgeable but 
aren't in reality. People who aren't knowledgeable are to be recognized by 
their complaining. It is very easy to see flaws. It is much harder to see good 
things and potential. Also, people who aren't knowledgeable like to make use 
of terms of which nobody really knows what they mean. For some snobby person 
it would be much easier to call a drink bruised instead of using more 
technical and clear terms which would require skill.

Are we settled on the term bruised gin just being used for the drink being 
diluted? Hmmmmm, now I don't see why people would like to shake a drink while 
at the same time reduce the effect of it. If it is the stress which is being 
created by the shaking which causes the damage why would we like to practice a 
shaking method which reduces this sort of stress while it is the practice of 
not shaking which would do the same? 

Bond: A Martini, shaken but not shaken please...


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