A Reverse Martini

July 17, 2015

20150717-084820.jpg I am the type of martini drinker that does not even open the vermouth bottle while making my own. Just glancing at the bottle while I am shaking the shaker away is just fine by me. So the fact that I am liking a reverse martini comes as quite a big surprise to me. This all came about when I was finishing up my latest read Dearie, about Julia Child. Whether or not she came up with this idea I am not certain, but it is the first I had ever heard of it. A reverse martini is 2/3 vermouth to a 1/3 gin. Shaken and then served over ice. I first gave this a try the other day at Hawthorne, and I really liked it. Super refreshing. It has the feel of a Summer drink. I don’t really drink martinis during the hot months, as they seem to get warm as opposed to super chilled, which is how I really like them. Plus a big tub of gin in the heat makes me sleepy. With this, the vermouth becomes the star. The gin is just a stylish background singer. A fresh bottle of vermouth is helpful. My studying around on the topic found that vermouth can loose a bit of its fabulousness when old. So often a bottle can last ages, so easy to see this happening. We had a newish bottle of Dolin that worked quite lovely. Julia preferred Noilly Prat, so we picked up a bottle of that yesterday, which meant I had to give it a test run last night. Insert smile. I think I actually preferred the Noilly. Julia gets it right again.