Let’s commence with my thoughts on the Martini. It’s not a drink that I particularly care for, but it is at the center of the most serious problem currently plaguing the world of mixed drinks. The martini, traditionally, is made with 4 parts gin, 1 part dry vermouth, stirred with ice, strained into a martini glass, and garnished with an olive. At some point, people began to use less and less of the vermouth, until the drink had basically become chilled gin with an olive in it. Then gin, with its complex and sophisticated flavor, began to be replaced with the virtually flavorless vodka, until the most widely imbibed “martini” was actually just cold vodka with an olive. Once things had devolved this far it was only a matter of time until folks began to assume that “martini” was a word which meant “drink with vodka in it”, and today we are awash in appletinis, chocolate martinis, etc. My problem here is not that these drinks are not as good as an actual martini, it’s that they have absolutely no connection to a martini and should be called something else. Part of what got me to thinking about this was a cappuncino martini which was on the menu at the pizza place I went to on Friday night; shouldn’t this drink, which was probably some coffee liqueur and vodka, have a more fun and evocative name, like a Stalin (you know, russian joe… and wait, come to think of it, isn’t this actually a Black Russian?) Here’s an analogous situation: you have a classic sandwich called a BLT, which is made by combining bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Then you start using less and less tomato, until you’re left with a bacon and lettuce sandwich, which you continue to call a BLT. Then somebody decides that they don’t really like bacon and substitute a chicken breast, a concept which catches on until what people call a BLT is really a chicken breast with lettuce sandwich. And then any sandwich with chicken breast is referred to as a “something-BLT”, and you have people calling a chicken parmesan sandwich a ParmLT. If this disturbing trend is allowed to continue we will soon be left with a language as woefully inexpressive as that of the Smurfs, where 85% of the vocabulary has been reduced to a single word. So, to sum up: a martini is gin with dry vermouth, vodka with dry vermouth is a vodka martini, vodka without vermouth is called “straight vodka”, and mixtures of vodka with other ingredients often already have a name, and if they don’t you should make one up which does not contain any part of the word “martini”.