A cocktail, well a Martini or a Manhattan, has become a Friday night ‘the weekend is here’ treat in my house.

I’m fascinated by the 1930s (some would say obsessed), The Lost Generation, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, The Murphys etc, so I decided to look into the history of cocktail making. Most famous was Harry Craddock, who moved from the USA to work at the Savoy in London during Prohibition. His Savoy Cocktail Book looks great, and my lovely husband has promised to find me a copy to test Harry’s classic cocktails each week.

So to start with, a classic Martini. Dirty? Dry? Shaken or stirred? Gin or Vodka? 

Dirty means adding brine from the olive jar. Not sure about that personally, but I will try it in due course as part of the testing process. Dry means adding more Gin than Vermouth, and Mr Bond always went for “shaken not stirred”, so clearly he went against the opinions of barman and liked the over agitated, slightly diluted taste.

My experience thus far is just a Dry Gin Martini, shaken not stirred, 1 part gin to 1 part Vermouth. 

So a Dry Martini please barman, shaken not stirred….

So you will need
1 part Gin
1 part Dry Vermouth,
Ice cubes
Green Olives/Lemon twist.

Pour Gin and Vermouth into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes.
Either shake/stir (we are very 007).
Pour into chilled cocktail glasses, garnish with olives /lemon twist.

Proceed with caution, may cause wobbly legs. Drink aware etc.

I found this amazing 1960’s cocktail book called Booze, it’s brilliant psychedelic design and illustration was the inspiration for my cocktail post.

Booze – by June Dutton and Edith Vanocur, illustrated by John Astrop and Eric Hill (Determined Productions Inc., 1967).