What’s In Your Martini Glass?
By Elizabeth Licata
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Which top shelf vodka should I demand in my martini? Or should I stick with the traditional gin, and, if so, should it be Bombay Sapphire or 110-proof Old Raj? Oh yes, and should we all kiss our livers goodbye as we valiantly attempt to keep up with the latest drinking trends?
According to the cocktail cognoscenti, all you need to know are the five M’s: martini, mojito, manhattan, margarita, and mimosa. That sounds about right. It also doesn’t sound all that different from 1934, when the top two most popular drinks were (drumroll) the martini and the manhattan (the mimosa-related champagne cocktail also makes that list). Vintage cocktails are more popular than ever, along with their fruitier, but equally potent technicolor comrades: the cosmopolitan, the appletini, the mango margarita, and others of that ilk.
Fruity or dry, colorful or clear, though—this is still serious booze. According to liquor industry stats, mixed drinks are steadily increasing their share of the bar market, as opposed to their less potent and more plebian competition: beer. Distributors of distilled spirits saw their sales go up nine percent last year, while beer remained flat and wine gained seven percent. Distilled spirits now have thirty percent of the alcoholic beverage market, according to the trade publication Advertising Age; the same article showed that the most drastic leaps in mixed drink consumption were among twenty-somethings, beer’s core constituency. It’s a hardcore world out there, alcohol-wise, and I say this as someone who has been a regular imbiber since the then-legal drinking age of eighteen, and even, truth be told, a couple years before that.
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Ozzie and Harriet, they weren’t
I grew up with cocktails, and I’m sure many who were children during the fifties and sixties can say the same. My parents served scotch, whisky sours, and gin and tonics at their bridge parties and their regular “gourmet club” dinners. Occasionally, they discovered new drinks: I remember the Harvey Wallbanger, the piña colada, and the Brandy Alexander all waxing and waning in popularity at their get-togethers. I was not drinking at this time, but by the age of ten, I did know how to make some of the simpler drinks, in case the bridge players were too busy to make their own. Beer was for football-watching, and was rarely included in my mother’s all-girl soirées, where whisky sours reigned almost exclusively.
When, a couple years into high school, my experimentation did begin, I remember only being able to tolerate sweet concoctions that were much like childhood soft drinks, with alcohol added. One unforgettable example, the blue horizon, consisted of Koolaid-brand lemonade and Blue Curacao. Looks were important too: hence the popularity of the tequila sunrise, a very pretty drink of grenadine, orange juice, and tequila. A decade or so later, we learned how to save money and increase the efficiency of the drink by subtracting the orange juice, grenadine, and ice.
A lifelong learning experience
During my undergraduate career, there was a rather prolonged—and, in retrospect, definitely unfortunate—love affair with sweet, fruity wines like sangria, lambrusco, and “Rhine.” We sought out brands like Blue Nun, Canei, Real, and sometimes Mateus (pretty bottle). They didn’t have white zinfandel then, or I’m sure we would have been drinking it. We added punch, if not sophistication, to our wine/swill by alternating it with shots of Jack Daniels. Nobody we knew drank martinis during our college years (this was the late seventies), though we would occasionally order gin and tonics or scotch and waters when we were feeling a bit more adult. Or maybe a Southern Comfort old-fashioned.
For me, the eighties were dominated by beer and (slighty better) wine, accompanied by tequila in various forms, especially the margarita. Mexican restaurants, particularly in Manhattan, where I attended grad school, were filled with screaming yuppies on their third frozen margarita, all trying to get the most nourishment possible out of the chips and salsa. I collected the little plastic animals and mermaids that were always perched on the edge of the (too-)huge margarita glasses at Bandito’s, my favorite East Village watering hole. This gave me a sense of purpose. (Later, I found a mail-order place where you could buy them by the box, but it wasn’t the same.)
Finally, the late eighties and nineties ushered in a more thoughtful, discriminating drinking era for my thirty-something crowd. We became wine connoisseurs, or at least thought we were. I attended a series of first-growth tastings at a local liquor store, trying desperately to figure out what was so much better about the $125-per-bottle Lafitte Rothschild I was rolling over my tongue (in retrospect, I realize it was that year’s release and probably too young to give much). And I remember trying my first cosmopolitan at the appropriately named Metropolitan (now Cecilia’s) before Sex and the City was even on the air. In the nineties, martini bars began to appear and the trendiest of the other popular taverns began to stock fancier martini glasses (instead of serving them in a rocks glass). We all tried to learn how to hold oversized martini glasses so half the contents didn’t spill out—with very limited success.
These kids today
I envy the twenty-somethings of the twenty-first century. Through I’m sure many are still drinking things called “screaming orgasm,” “Alabama slammer,” “fuzzy shark,” and, of course, the all-time-favorite-get-stupid-drink Long Island iced tea, they also have access to a much more varied selection of wines, nicer glasses, high-end spirits, and sophisticated bartenders. They can walk into a martini bar and be given something almost too beautiful to drink—and far too delicious to chug. They’re getting drinks made with fresh juices and specially-concocted syrups, not pre-fab mixes. Even the beer is better now. Way better.
But I don’t entirely regret my sadly unsophisticated journey through the seventies and eighties. I did learn a few things. The main thing being, when all’s said and done, you still can’t beat a tequila sunrise. Hold the orange juice, hold the grenadine, hold the ice.
Elizabeth Licata is editor of Buffalo Spree.
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