By any other name.......

I was thinking about the evolution of cocktails, the other day. When I first started bartending, a Martini, was a Martini, and that was it. You either drank gin or vodka, and if it was made with anything else, it wasn’t a Martini. Your only other choice in the matter was whether you wanted it dry or not. And if you ordered your Martini “very dry,” you were pretty much looking for straight gin or vodka.

But that was then, and this is now, and I am constantly amazed at the vast array of flavors that one can now find in liquor. We have vodka that comes in vanilla, chocolate, cherry, mango, orange, pomegranate, wild berry, espresso, tomato and even bubblegum! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Once I finally got over the bastardization of the name “Martini,” I looked at all the liquor on the back bar, and about 30 different flavors of martini’s popped in my head. These bear no resemblance to the original Martini, but it’s that word, “Martini” that sells the drink. There’s an old drink that combines White Crème de Menthe and Dark Crème de Cacao, we used to call it a Mint Patty, or a Girl Scout Cookie. No one wants to belly up to the bar and order a “Girl Scout Cookie,” so now we call it a Chocolate Mint Martini.

Apple Pucker Schnapps is one of the ingredients used to make a Sour Apple Martini…. I can use Caramello, a caramel flavored liquor and Frangelico, and make a Butter Pecan Martini….and it goes on and on…..I feel like a kid in a candy store, and I’m allowed to let my imagination run wild!

Vermouth, the other ingredient in the original Martini, doesn’t even enter into the vocabulary, much less the mixing cup.

The Martini is no longer a drink you have to “acquire” a taste for, in other words, you don’t’ have to gag one down until you’ve destroyed your taste buds. I can make any flavor drink you want, we’ll call it some sort of Martini, and call it a day.

So would a Martini by any other name sell as well? Probably not.