Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 12:19:59 -0500 Subject: [Danmail] You want dry, *I* got dry! To begin with, I am the worst Jew in the world. It was just minutes after I woke up this morning that I was gnawing happily away at a T-bone left over from last night. It wasn't until later today that I realized (read: was reminded by Jalissa) that today is Yom Kippur and you're supposed to not eat today. Oops. And it's not like I wasn't reminded yesterday. Anyway. Back to stories about Burning Man. Let's start with some background. One of the most "classy" drinks around is the martini. The exact classiness is left as an exercise for the reader. For those of you who don't drink, the martini is a very simple drink, though it has probably the most permutations of any mixed drink in the world. for those of you who know martinis, the following segment might be a bit dull. Tough shit. The basic recipe is this: Gin with a small amount of vermouth. That's it. Really. Tom Lehrer said it best in his song "Bright College Days": >Hearts full of youth, >Hearts full of truth, >Six parts gin to one part vermouth! The most common variant on this formula is to simply replace the gin with vodka. Which brings me to the classic "Shaken not stirred" line that James Bond fans love. It might be an overdone line, but there is truth in there. If you're going to be making martinis at home, it is definitely worth the $10 for a martini shaker. It not only makes sure the drink is REALLY cold (my meter is this: when my hand starts to actually freeze to the shaker, it's almost there), but it also adds a tiny about of very cold water which reduces the bite and brings out the flavour. Now there are many, many variants beyond that. Most of these use the name "martini" or even just the "suffix" of "-tini" to something un-martinitian in an attempt to lend class to an overly sweet and/or stupid drink. Examples include but are not limited to The apple martini. The Limontini. The Berrytini. The Peppertini, Passiontini, Cafetini and the most unpleasantly named Floridatini. These drinks are primarily consumed by Trixies, girls who usually order drinks called "Blowjob" or "Sex on the Beach" thinking that this makes them sexy and alluring, frat boys aspiring to be nouveau riche and Fags. Real Gay Men drink real martinis. I won't judge you by what gender you stick your dick in, but if your chosen drink is "The Passiontini", you're a fucking tool. That said, I'd try a Berrytini. It might be good. Of course, I'd have to mince about to acknowledge how fagtastic my drink is. And this brings us to the worst of the lot. The chocolate martini or "Chocotini". In the words of my Mother "It is offense to God, man, and good liquor." Or something like that. You want to get my Mom to forget how much she hates Governor Chimp? Order a Chocotini in front of her. This is a woman who would drop the pipe she was bludgeoning Hitler with in order to mock you for ordering such a sissy drink. I love my Mom. By the way, if you're willing to weather the storm from my Mom, I recommend the Chocolate Martinis at Wildfire (159 W. Erie in Chicago) and from my friend Rich Murray, who recently moved to Brooklyn. Rich minces about babbling about Frank Lloyd Wright all the time so why should he care if his drink is gay? Besides, as Megan and I learned, two of his chocolate martinis and two of his vodka tonics will either put you naked in a fetal ball in the shower or falling all over everything and singing "Ding ding ding went the trolley" at the Melrose (now Clarke's) on Belmont. Mock Rich's drinks all you want, but still respect them for the tasty weapons of destruction that they are. Back to regular martinis. Boy do I ever get distracted. When making a NORMAL martini, the question is what is the correct amount of vermouth to use. One of the most common methods is to pour vermouth in the glass, swish it around, then just dump the vermouth out. This method relies on the scientific principle of adhesion to leave in just the smallest amount of vermouth. I don't like this method for two reasons. First, as my coworker Conor also decries, this method involves THROWING OUT PERFECTLY GOOD BOOZE. That's just wrong. Though it does match well with the decadent air that many martini drinks attempt to cultivate. The other reason I don't like this is because it results in a very dry martini. Most martini drinkers like them dry. They Pride themselves on how dry they like their martinis. You can even get a small, refillable aerosol container to fill with vermouth so that you can just mist a small amount onto your glass of gin/vodka. It looks like a little brushed metal Binaca spray. Rich has one of these. I use it like Binaca. Then there are those people who take the dry martini idea to extremes. They'll dip a straw into the bottle of vermouth and then into the drink, thus putting only a fraction of a drop in the drink. Some will just open the vermouth bottle and waft the vermouth vapor across the drink. At this point, you're being a jackass. If you're goal in making the martini is to impress people my how few "vermouthions" you actually get into your drink, you're being a jackass and you're a lot closer to the Limontini drinking tools than you want to believe. I've even heard such ludicrous concepts as "wave the vermouth bottle over the glass" or "show the vermouth to the drink, but pour none in." Oh, how very droll. At this point you're not drinking a dry martini, you're drinking a glass of gin. Why not just pick up the bottle, put it in a brown paper bag, and wander on down the street? Oh, because you're classy and you're not drinking straight gin, you're drinking a "dry martini". Asshole. I, actually LIKE vermouth in my martini. I order my martinis "not dry" and I'm fine with that. I'm not trying to impress anybody with my dry martini drinking skills. That's just stupid. Besides, who am I going to be impressing anyway? If I'm in a place where I'm going to be ordering a martini, I'm already with people I like, and there probably aren't any women in the datable subset anywhere near me. Well, I've outdone all those "make mine super dry" morons, though I didn't want to. How? At Burning Man. "Time to make a drink. Doo na-noo na-noo. Fuck. Fuckety fuck. Fuckety fuck crap shit ass cock zucchini balls dildo bitch!" "What?" asked Molly. Or David. Or Shosh. Or John. "We forgot to get mixers. Okay, *I* forgot to get mixers. Dammit. Well, I guess I'm making a martini. A very dry martini." "Do we have ANY vermouth?" asked John. Or Shosh. Or David. Or Molly. "No. That's going to make it a really dry martini. In fact, we don't have any evidence that there is any vermouth within about 50 miles of here. That's the driest fucking martini ever! And, if that weren't enough, were in the middle of the fucking desert! All those fucks who make noise about how fucking 'dry' they like their martinis? Fuck them. This is the driest martini ever made in the history of martinis! 50 miles from the nearest vermouth and in the middle of one of the driest places in the western hemisphere! This martini is so dry my mouth will pucker and I'll have to rehydrate it with pure vodka!" "Isn't that all your martini is? Just vodka!" "Never mind that. ALL HAIL THE DRIEST OF MARTINIS! 'Look upon my driest martini, Ye Mighty dry martini drinkers, and despair!' BWAH HAH HAH!" "Please just shut up and drink the stupid thing." "Good plan, king. Bwah hah hah hah!. Cheers! ..." "... ULLLEEEECCCHHHH. Too dry. I wish I'd remembered mixers." "Please go away." And that is the story of the driest martini ever. Anybody got any vermouth? -