There’s a little Italian shop across the road from us, so having run out of Parmesan, we went across the other day and as I was looking at olives, an American gentleman told us we should really buy these anchovy stuffed olives for Martinis. He rattled off a recipe that oddly stuck in my mind:
- about 20ml Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth
- 20 ml peaty Whiskey
- 100ml good quality Gin
- 4 olives
- 2 Martini glasses
- lots of ice, preferably straight from the freezer
- 1 can of soda water
- a good constitution
Fill your Martini glasses with ice,
Top the ice with soda water. This is to chill your glasses, not to drink.
If you have been given a crystal mixing glass for your wedding, this is the time to dust it off and put it to good use. A Martini is a built drink, not a shaken one, so use big ice cubes straight from the freezer and fill your mixing glass halfway to the top.
Now, it is VITAL that you use ice straight from the freezer. That way, it will be sticky. Notice how it sticks to your fingers? That’s what you want! If it comes from an ice bin, it will have started to melt, It’s cold, but not sticky and we need sticky. Why, you ask? So that the vermouth sticks to it! Lets go on;
Pour the vermouth over the ice immediately, just until the vermouth reaches the bottom of the mixing glass. Immediately apply your cocktail strainer (or fingers) to the top of the glass and pour away ALL the vermouth, except for the minute quantity sticking to the ice. Now pour in the whiskey and the gin and using your elegant long handled cocktail spoon (or the handle of a normal spoon, held by its bowl) stir vigorously in one circular motion until the sides of the mixing glass ice up.
Deftly chuck the ice and soda out of your Martini glasses and flick them to get rid of as much water as possible, remembering that they are made of glass. Apply your strainer again and divide your Martinis into two glasses. Drop two olives in each and sip.
Planes, Trains & Anchovies 