One of my favourite buildings in Sydney. Also I had the best sandwich of my life from room service here years ago and I still think about it. (at The Westin Sydney)
“The Dry Martini was so named because it used both dry gin and dry (or French) vermouth; early recipes, such as the one found in Stuart’s Fancy Drinks and how to Mix Them (1896), called for large quantities of vermouth, anywhere from a third to a half of the drink. After Prohibition, though, the ratio of gin to vermouth steadily increased, a trend well established by the time David A. Embury’s The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks was published in 1953. In this book Embury castigates the half-and-half Martini; his own preferred ratio was seven parts gin to one part vermouth. Even at this stage, the theatrics of rinsing glassware with vermouth and discarding the excess or misting vermouth over the surface of the drink with a perfume atomiser were well established. They became ever more popular as consumers and bartenders learned to treat vermouth as though it were a necessary inconvenience in a Martini. Shortly after the publication of Embury’s book, vodka made such an impact on the American bar scene that the revised edition of 1958 includes a section entirely devoted to this exotic new spirit. By the 1990s the Martini served in the average American bar consisted of roughly three ounces of vodka, perhaps more, shaken with ice that had once briefly been acquainted with some dry vermouth. This drink bears little resemblance to the gentle blend of gin and vermouth with a dash of bitters first popularised a century earlier.”
The Bartender and The Archive
For Valentine’s Day last year my boyfriend at the time took me to a very expensive restaurant for dinner. I don’t really like Valentine’s Day but he loved it, and insisted on us celebrating it in the way he saw fit.
Our table wasn’t quite ready when we arrived so they asked us to sit in the bar and have a drink while we waited. I smiled and nodded at the waiter, but braced for what I knew was coming from [boyfriend]. He did not disappoint. Ten minutes of me sipping a martini and gritting my teeth at his outraged complaints later, we were seated.
The food was wonderful, the service attentive and the tacky plastic-wrapped rose they gave me at the end of the night was a terrible but appropriate touch. Yet [boyfriend] complained at every opportunity. He treated the maitre’d, sommelier, and assorted waiters like something he had recently scraped off his shoe. He bristled every time I ordered a drink, and goddamn it I ordered several purely in order to get through the night.
He scoffed about the portion sizes, the frequency of water-glass-refills, and judged the waitstaff on their attractiveness. Oh he also repeatedly told me how much he loved me and was so glad we had found each other etc etc.
When the bill came he “joked” with the waiter about how expensive it was, following up with a remark about his platinum credit card. I stared off into the middle distance and wished for swift and merciful death.
I am very much looking forward to Valentine’s Day this year. I will be spending it with the loves of my life [books and gin].
Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude
Useful word. More here.
