Martinez

The cocktail world owes a lot to the classic Martinez. Made with equal parts gin and sweet vermouth, plus maraschino liqueur and bitters, this old-school variation of the Manhattan went on to inspire the first Martinis and then the Dry Martini as we know it today.

The Martinez makes its first appearance in print in an 1884 bar guide by O.H. Byron, who described the drink as a Manhattan in which gin is substituted for whiskey, but it’s likely that the cocktail predated the book by a decade or more. This recipe did not specify which type of gin should be used, but given the preference and availability of Dutch genever at the time, it’s reasonable to conclude that it featured this malty style of gin. (English gin had not yet assumed its throne in America.) It is not in Jerry Thomas' 1962 The Bon Vivant's Companion: Or How to Mix Drinks, but does show up in the expanded 1987 edition.

The 1887 edition of Thomas' The Bar-Tender's Guide calls for a pony of Old Tom gin, a glass of vermouth, two dashes of Maraschino, and a dash of Boker's Bitters with ice, garnished with a slice of lemon.