How To Prepare Martini Cocktails

The martini is a dry cocktail with a long history and filled with controversy, but every good host will want to know how to prepare martini cocktails. Made with very few and simple ingredients, drinkers everywhere will swear by their method of making a martini cocktails. It is such a beloved drink H. L. Mencken called it “the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet.” It is in your best interest to learn how to make basic martini cocktails and play with the flavors and ratios to suit your tastes.

To make martini cocktails you will need

• Ice
• Gin
• Vermouth
• Green Olives or twist of lemon peel
• Pitcher
• Chilled Cocktail Glass
• Strainer

1. Mix 7 parts gin to 1 part vermouth. This makes dry martini cocktails. Use less vermouth for an even drier martini. A martini with no vermouth is known as a “bone-dry” martini or “pass the bottle". A wet martini is 50 percent gin 50 percent vermouth.
2. Stir the mix into a pitcher filled halfway with ice. You can also shake the mix with ice. Shaking or stirring is a personal choice, though shaking will get the martini colder. If you are a stirrer, do so longer with larger ice cubes. It is a myth that shaking bruises the gin; gin cannot be bruised.
3. Strain into the a chilled cocktail glass
4. Garnish with your choice of olives or lemon peel. Garnishes are a matter of personal choice and do not have to be included in a martini.

Remember that vermouth should be kept in the fridge, and gin should be kept in the freezer.