What happened to my martini? Free-for-all recipes, dubious add-ons - when will it end
By Beth Teitell
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Everyone has to draw the line somewhere.
For some, it's the chocolate chip bagel or the gingerbread latte.
For others, well, let's just pick it up from here, when I happened to run into a woman who was worked up over a recipe she'd just seen in a magazine.
``It's a moral affront,'' she began.
Having spent Thanksgiving with people who take their multigrain bread very seriously (as do I), I am no stranger to strong food-related emotions, so I gave a sympathetic nod as my mind raced with possible gastronomic abominations. But I was not left to wonder long.
``I saw an ad for Grey Goose vodka's vanilla martini,'' she said. ``You're supposed to fill the glass with vanilla vodka, float three coffee beans on top and voila!
``ARGH!''
Not being a martini drinker (although I wished I were), I wasn't immediately sure what the problem was, so I just nodded again.
``There's so little effort involved,'' she began. ``If you leave it in the bottle, is it a bottle of martinis?''
She sighed, and took me back to the good old days of the Rat Pack, when the only martini discussions were gin vs. vodka and olive vs. onion and shaken vs. stirred.
``Now you've got caramel syrup and schnapps and mango,'' she said, ``and at that point, my friend, you've crossed into mixed drinks.''
``Oh,'' I said dumbly, wanting to be sophisticated enough to feel her outrage.
She tried to make me understand. ``It's like the French get angry when we call sparkling wine `champagne.' The vanilla martini is like floating Smuckers jam in a sea of gummi bears and calling it a martini.
``Is Hi-C in a martini glass a toddler-tini?'' she demanded shrilly. ``We're playing fast and loose here, and it's only going to end in tears.''
I nodded, and then we exchanged some nonmartini-related small talk before parting ways - she still steaming over the vanilla martini, me thinking it might be a good entry-level martini. I thought we were pretty much done with the subject, but a few hours later I received an e-mail from her:
``An analogy, if I may: A classic martini is Oscar Wilde. An apple martini is Robin Williams. A caramel martini is Carrot Top.''
The Carrot Top martini was my eureka moment. Finally savvy, I started to see the world through her eyes and began to get angry about what they'd done to the martini, how they'd turned it into kitsch. I kid you not, on a martini Web site I saw an olive accent pillow and thongs with pictures of martinis.
Hrmph, I thought angrily. Is there nothing that can't be ``martini'd''? Enjoying the outrage of the righteous, I called a friend.
``Hey, want to go out tonight for chocolate martinis?''
