Permitted heresy: The Buñuelino

There is no better tranquilizer than a dry martini.
I read it in a woman's magazine.

Chocka-mocha-tinis - anathema sit. But, to each rule an exception. And today we make one for the giant of surrealist cinema, who proves that to oppose all things greedy and capitalist does not mean foregoing a damn fine drink. Here's Luis Buñuel on his own invention, the Buñuelino, as featured in his masterpiece, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie:

"To provoke, or sustain, a reverie in a bar, you have to drink English gin, especially in the form of a martini. To be frank, given the primordial role played in my life by the dry martini, I really think I ought to give it at least a page. Like all cocktails, the martini, composed essentially of gin and a few drops of Noilly Prat, seems to have been an American invention. Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative powers of the Holy Ghost pierced the virgin’s hymen 'like a ray of sunlight through a window – leaving it unbroken.' Another crucial recommendation is that the ice be so cold and hard that it won’t melt, since nothing’s worse than a watery martini. 

"For those who are still with me, let me give you my personal recipe, the fruit of long experimentation and guaranteed to produce perfect results. The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients – glasses, gin, and shaker – in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don’t take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Shake it, then pour it out, leaving only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, shake it again, and serve." 

My Last Sight (1983).

I never go jogging. It makes me spill my martini.

There is no room in Cyber-Martini for reformation tendencies. We will NOT be peddling apple-martinis, espresso-tinis, choca-tinis, lychee-tinis, breakfast martinis and god knows what else. Anathema sit.

There are three variations of the Classic Martini that are within the Orthodoxy.

The first is the Vodka Martini.

The method of preparation is the same as with the Classic Martini except that you use good vodka (for me, Stoli Elit or for something a bit more unusual Black Moth) rather than than good gin.

You also garnish with a green olive rather than a lemon twist. The olive should be de-stoned but should not have any ridiculous stuffing that overwhelms the taste of the vodka or the Noilly Prat other than potentially a pimento.

If you use one olive, drop it into the glass. Three olives, my preference, should be skewered on a stick. To use two olives would be the behaviour of someone who lives on the wrong side of the park. Four olives would unbalance the cocktail.

The second permitted variation is the Dirty Martini.

The method of preparation here is exactly the same as the Vodka Martini except that you also add a dash (Austrians - read a half ounce) of the olive brine to the shaker/mixing glass alongside the vodka. This to me is the ultimate martini but depends critically on the quality of the olives and the quantity of the olive brine used. It's fantastic when done well but very easy to do badly.

The third permitted variation is the Gibson.

The Gibson is exactly the same as the Classic Martini except that you garnish with two cocktail onions dropped into the glass. Personally, I think this is a very poor relation to the original, but, selah, it has history.

There are two cocktails which you might have thought allowed but which aren't on this list. The first is the Gimlet. Now the Gimlet walks, talks and quacks like a martini, but it ISN'T a martini. It is, however, a damn fine drink. You make it in the same way as a classic martini, except that you're 1:4 on Rose's Lime juice to good gin and there's no garnish.

The second is the Vesper. This is the martini variant mentioned in that misogynistic, masochistic hack, Ian Fleming's novel, Casino Royale. I know how to mix it. You can wiki it and find out too. But I'm not encouraging anyone to go down that road.

You can, however, see the cast-iron logic behind the disqualifications. A martini cocktail always has a fleeting acquaintance with vermouth. The Gimlet and the Vesper do not. Hence, while they wear the dress, martinis they ain't. Period.

I feel like we're in a Noel Coward play: someone should be mixing martinis

Before we start this relationship, I think it's important to get some things Arnold-Schwarzenegger-straight. And I'm not looking for comments or discussion on this post: Cyber-Martini is not a democracy. Deal with it.

This is how you make a classic martini according to me and the only bartender who counts, Jamal at the Monkey Bar, Sandy Lane.

Before you begin, procure some 6oz martini glasses (preferably Riedel), some good gin (to your taste - I'm thinking Hendricks) and some dry vermouth (I prefer Noilly Prat). Stick the gin in the freezer and the vermouth in the fridge. In fact, I would recommend that no good home is complete without a martini drawer in the freezer, just as no refrigerator is complete without a bottle of Tobasco sauce in the condiments shelf and a bottle of vermouth on the rack. Stick the glasses in a cupboard. Do not take them straight from a hot dishwasher (as I've seen some provincial dolts do) as your guests arrive.

Now to step one. Fill your cocktail shaker/mixing glass and martini glasses with ice. Leave while you check your blackberry. 30 secs later, empty ice, water.

Step two. Put ice cubes into shaker. No crushed ice as this melts too quickly. Throw in Noilly Prat. Empty Noilly Prat. Basically, you have now introduced the NP to the ice, and will later introduce the ice to the gin. There is no need to get any more promiscuous than that. This is an elegant drink from a more civilised time.

Step three. Add gin to shaker/mixing glass.

Step four. Shake, stir, as you wish. Only pretentious fools make a big deal about which you do. (Indeed, James Bond's claim that to stir bruises the gin more than shaking it is quite simply wrong.) Do not however, belabour the point. Fifteen seconds of stirring/shaking is fine. Beyond that you aren't making the gin any colder - you're just over-diluting with melted ice.

Step five. Strain cocktail into glass. 

Step six. Take a thin slice of unwaxed lemon peel. Squeeze gently over glass to release citric oil. Then twist and drop into the glass.

Simples.

Now, I have a lot of German friends. They may actually be Austrian, but culturally, these are people who are not going to appreciate being given a six step guide to making a martini without some numeric guidance as to measures. You want around 4 oz of cocktail in a 6 oz glass. Any more and drinking it while it's still chilled will require such haste as to belie the elegance of the entire project.  In terms of the ratio between the gin and the vermouth, if you choose to forego my In And Out method and simply want to mix the gin and vermouth together in the mixing glass, the maximum Noilly Prat to Gin ratio should be 1:4. Personally, I go dry at 1:6. For the ultimate dry martini, you can strap a bottle of Noilly Prat a nuclear bomb, set the timer, and then stand 2 miles away with a glass of cold gin waiting for the fallout.