Freezer Martini

History

Regular Martini Drinkers have their own preferred ratio of gin (or vodka) to vermouth, but the one thing that Martini Drinkers agree upon is the need for this cocktail to be cold. Very cold. Hence, it's not surprising that a bartender decided that it would be beneficial to use a freezer to properly chill the glass and ingredients. We'll never know who was the very first person to use a freezer in the preparation of a Martini, but as far as I'm aware, Giuseppe Cipriani is the first to stipulate this in print.

Giuseppe Cipriani was mixing Martinis at the Hotel Europa in Venice before he opened his Harry's Bar nearby in 1931. When Cipriani started to place his Martinis, glasses and all, in a freezer as part of his preferred method of service is unknown but he describes this in his 1987 book L'angolo dell'Harry's Bar, published seven years before Salvatore Calabrese made his "Direct Martini" for Stanton Delaplane at Dukes bar. While successive Dukes bartenders have continued to hero and become most identified with this style of Martini service, frozen Martinis were certainly being served by Giuseppe Cipriani many years earlier.

Aperitifs are essential to the success of a gathering; they help break the ice and almost eliminate shyness. However, be careful about who will be drinking them: don't offer a too strong aperitif to friends who are not used to drinking, but also not a too light one to those who, besides being your friends, are also friends of the glass.

The martini, for example, is strong. I would do it like this. First, take a bottle of good English gin and a bottle of dry Italian white wine and put them in the refrigerator in the morning. About an hour before the guests arrive, pour a part of the wine and five parts of gin into a pitcher filled halfway with ice. Stir a little but not too much and pour into 60-gram glasses. Put the filled glasses in the freezer until the guests arrive.

Giuseppe Cipriani, L'angolo dell'Harry's Bar, 1978