Well... I have no objection to vodka in its place, it's just not a martini. Gin must be (or should be, anyway) consumed with discretion, taste, and restraint, or the old adage will kick in, "Gin makes you sin". I have a lovely relationship - restrained and disciplined - with Hendrix, a particularly fine example of Ginophage.
These are children's drinks wherein the intent is to get mentally rearranged and never taste the instrument of one's destruction. For such people, I recommend straight Sterno.
P.S. I have few rules about living, but one of them is ironclad: No alcohol before power tools, firearms, or women - mixing any of the aforementioned will cause one to lose life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim Daneliuk snipped-for-privacy@tundraware.com PGP Key:
Screw the lid off a pint of 100 proof Tangueray gin, pitch lid out car window, after much discussion with your drinking partner, mark the halfway point with your thumb, drink down to the marked point and pass to partner, they discard empty bottle out the other window.
I believe the standard prescription is pouring the gin while looking at a portrait of Lorenzo Schwartz, the inventor of vermouth. So just tape a picture to the dash.
"Shaken, not stirred" - British Secret Service agent James Bond. I should be that "effete", grin.
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reason the debonair Bond wants his martini shaken is that he is an iconoclast. He's not drinking a martini at all! He's drinking a vodka martini. There's a difference, as we shall see. Pay close attention--we will not use the terms interchangeably but it's easy to get confused.
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Some connoisseurs believe that shaking gin is a faux pas, supposedly because the shaking "bruises" the gin (a term referring to a slight bitter taste that can allegedly occur when gin is shaken). In Fleming's Casino Royale novel, it is stated that Bond "watched as the deep glass became frosted with the pale golden drink, slightly aerated by the bruising of the shaker," suggesting that Bond was requesting it shaken because of the vodka it contained. Prior to the 1960s, vodka was, for the most part, refined from potatoes (usually cheaper brands). This element made the vodka oily. To disperse the oil, Bond ordered his martinis shaken; thus, in the same scene where he orders the martini, he tells the barman about how vodka made from grain rather than potatoes makes his drink even better. Other reasons for shaking tend to include making the drink colder or as Bond called it, ice-cold. Shaking allows the drink to couple with the ice longer thus making it far colder than if it were to be stirred. Shaking is also said to dissolve the vermouth better making it less oily tasting. While properly called a Bradford, shaken martinis also appear cloudier than when stirred. This is caused by the small fragments of ice present in a shaken martini.
There now. Do not touch power tools for 12 hours, please.
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