On a hunt for a great food article, I managed to bump into this little guy. This blog entry packs a powerful punch and sets your taste buds into overdrive with its mention of random and exciting ways to reinvent a classic. The author's discovery of quick and interesting flavor fixes for an otherwise ordinary adult beverage get you thinking "It's 5 o'clock somewhere" and leave you plotting new and interesting ways to invent your next martini.
Minimalist Cooking: A Maximalist Martini
Writer Bob Morris tells why he doctors his pristine martinis with caper juice, ginger, even chile powder.
No cocktail is taken more seriously by purists than the martini. Learning to prepare one properly at the onset of middle age brought a kind of dignified simplicity to my cocktail hours, and clarity to the chilled glass I would lift to my lips each evening. Purity prevailed for a while in my minimalist, modernist home.
But then a funny and liberating thing happened. I realized that I preferred (horrors) vodka in my martinis to the classic but medicinal gin. And although I never considered making Cosmopolitans (cocktails should come from literary figures, not TV characters), my first dirty martini was a revelation. With all the olive juice and olives, it was a salad in a glass. And when I added a splash of tomato juice and a squeeze of lemon, it became a gazpacho that helped justify skipping vegetables at dinner.
From there, caper juice and chile pepper got added to the shaker, or even chile powder from a bottle. Other times, I found myself grating ginger into grapefruit juice, then adding a drop or two (or seven) of pomegranate syrup. Add ice and vodka, shake, and pour out something between a spiked Snapple and a Slurpee.
You can see where this has gone. Once a Manhattan purist (bourbon, sweet vermouth, bitters, cherry), I now add a splash of apple cider when it's in season. Clarity and simplicity have given way to gleeful, mad-scientist invention.
But then the martini, like American coffee, has been going this way for years anyway, with everything from chocolate to bacon thrown into the shaker. Well, as it is with minimalist homes that become more likable and livable as they become more cluttered and cozy, so it is with minimalist cocktails. For me, the martini has been a slippery, spicy, savory slope. Especially when I'm on my third one before dinner.
Bob Morris is a columnist for the New York Observer and the author of Assisted Loving.
