The Martini Madness Experiment 3: Hell, Hops and Heaven A comedy article
by Luke McKinney 11,088 110 07/20/2010 01:07 PM 2909 views
I'm on a mission to endure the oddest Martinis I can find (Part 1) and have discovered that if you want something ruined, you have to ruin it yourself (Part 2). I discovered this so hard that I'm now legally barred from mixing drinks, and have left the house while waiting for the fumes, shame and feelings of bacon-regret to fade.
The Martini In The Street
I walked out my front door and kept going to the first place that promised martinis. I didn't have to walk far, since claims of Martinis in pubs are as common as claims of penis extension online, and usually about as accurate.
A terrible picture for a terrible bar
First lesson: just because a place makes a big deal of advertising Martinis fourteen times on their menu, doesn't mean they know a damn thing about how to make one.
"Does this place do Martinis?" I asked the approaching bartender.
"We're great at Martinis!"
"A classic martini!" I joyfully declared.
"Sure, vodka or gin?"
That is not a casual question when someone tells you they know Martinis. That's like ordering a steak and being asked "Sure, would you like me to wipe my ass with it?" -- you can give the right answer, but you don't want to eat there anymore.
I gently informed the bartender that Martinis use gin, Vodka Martinis use vodka, that's why they're called Vodka Martinis, and he managed to make things even worse. I got what would have been a half-competent vodka martini* if it hadn't arrived cradled in a bowl of filth masquerading as a martini glass. I could see small bacterial civilizations getting pissed on the shores of the drink, erecting crude seawalls where their valuable dirt was being dissolved into the drink. This glass would have given an archaeologist a heart attack of joy, convincing them that a civilization invented fine glassworking five thousand years ago and immediately lost the first example in a ditch.
*No caps for this one
I took the glass back to the bar, told him it was dirty, and God's honest truth this is what he said.
"It can't be, we wash them every day!"
I quickly checked I hadn't lost any fingers to leprosy just by being in the bar, and left.
The Hoptini
I gave blind luck a chance and it kicked me in the throat. So, next I searched the city for the best bartenders, and found Brock of the Burger Bar and Tequila Tavern (a.k.a. "The Best Named Establishment In History").
Brock loves drink, and he loves people who love drink, and is therefore the best possible bartender. He'd just picked up some hops for his own beer-brewing experiments -- this is a man who spends all day serving drinks, and his hobby is making more drink, and when I asked him to invent a new Martini he responded by combining both. This man is the Caped Crusader of alcoholic invention, turning both business and play to the battle against sobriety. I think I love him.
Drinking the Hoptini: The gin Hoptini was wonderful, almost sweet with grassy, citrus tones and a ludicrously long bitter aftertaste. We're talking Jason Voorhees long-lived, because way after five sequels have been made, you can still taste it. You'll have to excuse this sounding like an actual review, because this drink was extremely not terrible.
Drinking the Vodka Hoptini: Because when you want a terrible Martini, you need vodka! Here we learned exactly why real Martinis use gin -- where the Hoptini was an enjoyable oddity, taking up the flavors of the hops throughout the structure of the balanced cocktail, the Vodka Hoptini was vodka with grit in it. It was like a broken espresso machine dispensing a silty powder in a solution that tasted like a leaking battery.
Then Brock proved he was ten times the drinkologist I was by serving a Bacon-bourbon with pickled Jalapenos, and in stark defiance of everything I'd learned, the bacon-drink wasn't horror. But that's a story for another article.
I have much to learn
The Ultimate Martini
Even more qualified than me!
Frankie Solarik is the embodiment of everything I want in Martini-makers. He doesn't just understand alcohol, he can make it sing and dance without ever leaving the glass, and even straight men would enjoy the musical. A good bartender can make a good drink, but this this guy could mix the cure to cancer if he thought it would taste nice. Barchef is without question the best bar in the city, so if you're ever in Toronto make sure you visit.
But dress nice. You're in the presence of professionals.
Frankie served me a "Martini Three Ways", a molecular mixology masterpiece -- a five-course Martini presentation which could win a Nobel Prize. We're talking Nobels in Chemistry, Literature, hell, even Peace if you could get rival warlords to have one -- there is no problem this drink could not solve.
The five courses involve molecular mixology, a monoglyceride rosemary foam, infused alcohol and a reverse spherified liquid suspension: this drink is smarter than my degree (though the alcohol content is about the same). And that's all enhancing the base, which happens to be the best Martini you've had in your life.
This is the first time I've ever looked happy in Part 3 of these articles.
At this point I normally hate you all for what's happened to me (whether it's because I've exploded my stomach, stripped out my tongue or burned out my nervous system), but that's because the experiments don't normally end with me drinking The Antidote To Unhappiness. This Martini was like finding that El Dorado's town square is the fountain of youth, dispensing a perfect ratio of gin stirred with dry vermouth.
And I can now say I've done something better than Bond. You can't put a price on that.
Store
11,088 
110 
128,123 
71