11 Bartenders Make a Martini (Classic, Speed, Tiki & More)

[cork pops] [ice cracking]

[glass clinks] [spirits trickling]

[ice clanking] [shakers rattling]

[upbeat music]

[lively music]

So the thing about a Martini is that we've gotten

to the point, you could have so many different varieties.

And I don't disagree with all of them,

but if everything's a Martini, nothing is.

A lychee Martini, a dirty Martini, an espresso Martini.

So we're gonna bring it back to the basics.

My definition on this is going to be gin,

it's going to be dry vermouth,

and it's going to be a garnish at the end.

There are so many ways to do it.

Some people like 'em dirty, 50/50, really, really dry.

It can go the entire spectrum.

However, when you've only gotten, Martini, make it now,

there is a way that I do it.

Two things, really: dry vermouth here, Monkey 47 here.

How much of each do you put in?

I find people like more of five to one:

two and a half ounces of the gin

and a half ounce of the dry vermouth.

So five to one, I find is beautifully perfect

in its balance, where it's not too dry,

and it's not too wet.

If somebody says, I want a dry Martini,

oddly enough, that means less dry vermouth.

I don't know, flammable and inflammable

mean the same thing in society, who knows?

What is the key to a perfect Martini at the start?

Cold. It is an up cocktail.

There's no ice sitting in the glass.

This should not be shaken.

If you shake, you are changing the character of the drink.

You can bruise the juniper,

and you can give cloudiness to a cocktail

that's supposed to be clear.

James Bond, love ya. Let's stir, let's not shake.

You're gonna use a spoon.

The idea is to actually cup in the ice, like this.

The other idea is to not move your wrist at all.

You don't wanna do like a cauldron, like this.

You want to get that beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,

beautiful, beautiful motion, where it's hooking the ice in.

We're not going for over-dilution, that's why we stir.

If we wanted it to be over-diluted, we would shake.

We're just trying to get it just cold enough.

So it's not necessary to chill all your cocktail glasses

for cocktails, but if you're gonna do it for one,

a Martini is it.

People want to know that it's cold.

Boom. Straight out of being chilled right here.

Then when it becomes time to pour, a secret taught to me

is that you should fill it with more ice.

That's gonna be the final burst of coldness

that this cocktail, that's supposed to be cold,

is going to get before it goes into this glass.

So a Martini, by classic definition,

has two choices in garnish:

olives, which we always use for a dirty Martini,

and a lemon twist.

They're not just there to look pretty.

The point is to get these essential oils off of this twist

and into this drink, so that little citrus burst happens.

That's gonna add flavor to your cocktail.

Cold, clear, and perfectly diluted.

And that is what we feel we get with this concoction.

Alright, so I work at The Bush.

We are a lesbian bar in Bushwick.

We do not cut off cocktails at any time.

Or one boundary is that we don't do egg-white cocktails

after 11:00 PM, and I'm very grateful for that one boundary.

You want a Martini to be freezing cold.

And if it's anything less than freezing cold, it sucks.

So first, I'm gonna chill the glass with ice and water

while I make the drink.

And I'm gonna put a little of dry vermouth,

and I'm gonna put a [beep] ton of vodka, a crap ton,

0.5 of the dry vermouth,

and about two and a half, three ounces,

I tend to go three ounces on the vodka.

It's not too dry.

An extra-dry Martini is essentially a chilled shot

in a Martini glass.

We still have the vermouth.

We're still tasting the vermouth.

Now I'm gonna shake it. [shaker rattling]

I personally like a vodka Martini shaken to death.

[shaker rattles] It looks great.

I'm gonna dump this.

[glass clinks] [spirits trickle]

And you wanna finish that with a lemon twist

right around the rim.

Pop it in. Cheers. [gentle music]

Our bar is called Martiny's,

so that's why people a lot order Martinis.

For me, like gin Martini is the best cocktail in the world,

also like king of the cocktail in the world.

Very simple, but that's why it's very difficult to make.

So first, I prepare the garnish.

Lemon peel is very, very important.

Cut the white part off. Too much bitterness.

Make it beautiful. [bright music]

Big chunk of ice on the bottom,

and then a small chunk of ice on the top.

[ice clanks] Mm-hm.

Chill the mixing glass.

So let's make it.

Boodles gin. Not too botanical, not too citrus.

It's very neutral. [cork squeaks and pops]

Antica Torino. I'm using the six-to-one gin and vermouth.

Very gentle, no bubbles.

When you're making bubbles,

that means you're making aeration.

I took three years to make a perfect Martini.

And still, I'm practicing.

[ice rattling] [lively music]

I have to stir a very long time.

Water is a kind of glue to become a Martini.

[lively music]

This is a perfect, clear, clean-texture Martini.

Always olive on the side,

and also, it's a little bit far from Martini.

I'm gonna put lemon oil, just the aroma.

I always recommend to customers,

smell and focus on the flavor,

and also kiss the glass for the first sip.

When you grab it, your hand is always shaking.

I don't want you to miss the first sip.

I take a culinary approach to cocktails.

When working with different chefs and different restaurants,

the chef that I work with, he really wanted an MSG cocktail.

My immediate thought was,

Let's do a savory Martini with that.

People love their dirty Martinis.

So we're gonna use a half ounce

of the drinking-grade Shaoxing wine

in place of our vermouth.

This resembles an overly-oxidized Oloroso sherry.

In place of a regular olive brine,

we're gonna do an MSG olive brine.

We do about a 2% solution of MSG in there.

Then the gin. [cork pops]

Two ounces per cocktail for this one.

[spirits trickle] [ice cracking]

I crack one cube, just to get the dilution going.

So I'm just gonna do this the European way.

Do you guys notice that,

whenever you go to like Spain or something,

that all the bartenders, no matter what,

they use tongs and do each ice cube individually,

no matter what?

It's crazy. [ice clanks]

Stir, stir, stir, stir, stir.

[lively music]

And then there you have it, your MSG Martinis.

The very first printing, I believe,

of a Martini in a cocktail book called for two parts gin,

one part fortified wine, and two dashes of orange bitters.

And that was like back in the early 1900s.

Our visitors are international,

so we like to make everything in a classic way.

I use Monkey 47 gin

because it has really nice aromatics in it.

Gin has a lot of flavor to it, and vodka just doesn't.

Three ounces of gin here.

It's a really strong cocktail because it's a Martini.

This is a Cocchi Americano. It's an Italian vermouth.

It adds a little bit of sweetness.

Now, between bartenders, there's a lot of people

that will say that Cocchi is not a vermouth,

that it is a fortified wine.

Bartenders all over the world use it as a vermouth,

and we continue to use it as a vermouth at the Plaza.

But you can't put too much, which is why I go ahead

and add a little bit of the Noilly Prat,

a traditional French dry vermouth.

We use really nice big ice cubes here at the Plaza Hotel,

and then always with the two dashes of the orange bitters.

Add salt and pepper.

It just enhances the flavor of the spirit.

You're supposed to stir a Martini 25 turns,

but I never measure. [glass clinking]

I'm going to garnish this with a cocktail onion,

which I make myself.

When you put an onion in a Martini,

it's called a Gibson Martini.

This is a classic cocktail.

Everyone should taste one in their lifetime.

My bar is Paradise Lost,

and we specialize in modern tropical cocktails,

basically a new nomenclature

for what we used to formerly call tiki cocktails.

Vibey, really fun and exotic flavors and drinks.

Instead of orange bitters, we're going to be using orgeat.

Orgeat is an almond-based syrup.

It gives it a really nice nuttiness.

Next, one teaspoon of plantain eau-de-vie.

It's giving it an earthiness,

as well as a interesting density to play off of the orgeat.

Next up, a little bit of Oka Kura Bermutto vermouth.

You have more delicate aromatics in comparison

to your traditional dry vermouth.

We're going to be changing up the traditional recipe

and using actually a split base.

We're going to substitute a little bit of that gin

for a little bit of rum.

We're using coconut-and-pistachio-oil,

fat-washed El Dorado, 3 year.

This is going to give it a really beautiful nuttiness,

texture, and slightly more body.

Fat-wash infuses different types of fats,

whether it's oils or solids like butter, into a spirit.

Next up, we're going to our gin.

This is going to be some matcha-infused Roku Japanese gin.

Over at our tiki bar, we mainly use pebble ice,

which is going to be smaller pieces of ice

that really help with the dilution of most drinks.

Unfortunately, that means

that we don't have regular cube ice.

So we usually use these larger cubes in place

of any other shaking cubes that we had used.

[ice cracking and clinking]

Over at Paradise Lost,

we actually pre-batch this entire Martini

and serve it inside a little vial,

so you can pour as much or as little out as you'd like.

Make it a little bit more playful,

as well as give you a drink

that you can kind of interact with.

So this is where the pebble ice comes in.

A little bamboo leaf, as well as a little orchid

to bring you back into the tropics.

I really love serving Martinis in Nick and Nora glasses

with a sidecar kept on ice.

Sip as much as you want.

Whenever you're ready, pour a little bit more out.

[lively music]

And that's your perfect Martini.

So flair bartending is essentially bartending

with a little extra style.

I think that anytime you're out at a restaurant, a bar,

and you're enjoying yourself,

and you see a bartender having fun

and showing you a level of mastery of their craft,

I think it's an enjoyable experience.

So the way I like to start my Martini

is putting a couple dashes of orange bitters in there.

And then we're gonna put some bianco vermouth.

Now, for me, bianco vermouths have a little bit

more floral characteristic

and have a little bit more going on as far as body,

so it gives a little bit of richness to the cocktail

that I don't think dry vermouth necessarily has.

And then I'm gonna use gin.

And I think most people that say they don't like gin

probably have had a bad experience with a bad gin.

Lots of ice. Ice is our friend.

We love ice. Makes the drink nice and cold.

And we're gonna stir. We never shake a Martini.

I have very strong opinions about this.

Stirring will keep that velvety mouth feel

that is so important with a Martini.

And, of course, we'll do a nice long pour.

A little aeration never hurt anybody.

[spirits trickling] [ice clatters]

And then we're just gonna finish it off a little lemon peel.

Give it a little rim, drop it in. Gin Martini.

A Martini can be a very simple drink for a home bartender.

Being able to just pull out a Martini at a dinner party

or when you're having people over for cocktails

is kind of special.

I'm gonna take my coupe, just to get it a little bit cold.

So I'm gonna throw it in the freezer.

So now I'm gonna go ahead and just take my shaker,

and then plop in a few ice cubes

and then a little bit of vodka.

Honestly, I don't use a measuring thing when I'm at home,

so we're just gonna pour some in.

You can actually see it's starting to frost there

on the outside, so you know it's nice and cold.

And then my chilled glass,

it's got that nice little frost on it.

I'm just going to rim this glass with a little bit

of the lime to give it that nice little flavor.

I know that vermouth is a thing

that often goes into Martinis,

but for the home, I like just a straight-up vodka Martini

with a little bit of a twist.

It is all vodka.

This is a glass of chilled vodka. [chuckles]

But that's okay for a home bartender.

Donohue's Steak House is a family-run restaurant.

We've got four generations. I am the third.

In the olden days, if you asked for a Martini,

it was gin automatically.

At Donohue's, I'd say at least half of the customers

are ordering a vodka Martini before dinner.

Tribuno dry vermouth. [lively music]

Gonna squish this around a little bit.

I'm gonna pour this off 'cause the ice has now been blessed.

Basically, you pour off all the extra vermouth

to make a dry Martini.

Then you're gonna open up your Grey Goose

[ice clanking] and shake it up.

And then your Martini glass, you chill it, of course

'cause it has to be cold.

Take the lemon twist, put that in here.

[lively music]

Now that's a perfect way to start an evening.

[gentle music]

I bartend at a neighborhood industry bar.

Jack and Cokes, Tito's and sodas, tequila soda.

People do order Martinis.

Even in a neighborhood bar, you'll get them.

And it's a domino effect.

And once someone sees one go out, they want it.

This is just an ice bath for the Martini glass.

Because there's nothing worse

than making an ice-cold Martini,

and then pouring it in a room-temperature,

or maybe dishwasher-fresh glass.

So I prefer to go with vodka. To each their own.

As long as I'm not drinking an espresso Martini,

I don't think you should be judging me. [laughs]

While I have my vodka,

I'll shake it a little bit, let it sit,

and then I'm gonna wash the glass with vermouth.

It's known as an in-and-out.

I think that a good Martini has to have vermouth

that's been refrigerated.

It does go bad if you don't keep it stored properly.

Fresh vermouth, that's the game-changer.

You just swirl it, so that you coat the glass

with the vermouth, and then you dump it.

I don't always use a strainer

because I'm not a cocktail bartender.

Just like this, using the two.

And then, for a twist, if I wanted a dirty Martini,

I'd just go swim in the ocean.

Take the skin, twist it,

run it over the top of the glass, and you just drop it in.

And that's it. [bright music]

[lively music]

I work in a high-volume craft cocktail bar.

On an average night,

I probably make between eight to 900 cocktails.

I've won some pretty big speed bartending competitions.

So putting some ice in a glass.

I prefer a 50/50-style Martini.

Then we come in. [spirits trickling]

For the speed, it's pretty easy.

In the nightlife world, time is money.

The faster I can make drinks,

the more I can move on to the next guest,

and hopefully make more money off of them. [chuckles]

[ice clanks] Dump my ice.

You hold it low, you pour it slow.

For a stirred cocktail,

you want a silky texture on the palette.

And then you have a really nice,

beautiful texture on the top of the glass.

So for me, 50/50 Martinis should always have a lemon twist

and an olive.

I rub the lemon peel on the stem of the glass.

When someone picks up the glass,

you're actually smelling the oils on your fingers.

And then wrap my olive in my peel.

I really like a snack with my Martinis.

And that is that. [lively music]

Man, this vodka's amazing. That's what I'm looking for.

[Arianne] This is great a great Martini.

All those other- Delicious.

[Chris] really cool, it just balances-

[Tim] That makes it really pleasant,

makes you kinda wanna go for a second sip.

Delicious. Delicious.

Perfect. [upbeat music]