I have a question that has been bothering me, If this belongs in the current martini thread (Though i do believe it’s a separate topic) i’m happy to relocate.
I’ve been spending a lot of time reading and learning about the Martini, I’ve served thousands at this point in my cereer as a working bartender and the variety is endless, but one thing i cant nail down amongst peers is a matter of the prefix “dry and extra dry” and how it pertains to the assembly of the drink.
as i understand it - or at least my interpretation of it - the prefix refers to the the style of vermouth being used, this makes the most sense to me because if i have noilly on hand or dolin dry, and i make a 4:1. that’s a “dry” martini for most people.
personally i like a semi dry martini, 3:1 with a mix of bianco and dry. this is to me a “semi-dry” martini but then when i ask people how they make an extra dry martini, their answer is, 5ml - rinse the serving glass/mixing glass and to me this makes no sense, considering we have brands of vermouth that are labelled “extra dry” and would be perfectly comfortable in a drink at quantities greater than 5 ml and they would still be “extra-dry” martinis.
It seems that to me that the logic doesn’t line up. All things being equal, the “extra-dry” martini doesn’t make sense to be the absence of vermouth rather than the style of vermouth. For all other variations it’s the style over quantity. what do i call a 3:1 with extra dry vermouth, is that dry again?
Some people swear by certain ratios (i’ve been told extra dry is only a rise and everything else is wrong) but this seems foolish to do as martinis are a personal drink that seems to be wonderful in most combinations of volume and style. is this a reaction to most bars not having most types on hand because not enough people order them? it seems to me at least somewhat logical that you would use less of a sweeter “dry vermouth” to emulate the sugar quantity of a extra dry in terms of brix% for the whole drink but it doesnt seem logical to me that the vermouth caps out at 10ml for a 60ml pour of gin in every case of the drink which is another way you might find it built. i’m happy to assume that in the case of most bars, the “extra dry” using less of a regular dry be an emulation of style without being a true “extra dry”.
I cant find any literature that explains this subject in the depth that i need to make a firm decision about how i approach this. how do you make an extra dry martini? why? is there a right or a wrong way? is it by volume or style? please, i need to lay this to rest.
So, yes, “dry martini” simply means a martini made with dry vermouth. This is a fact with a lot of (not-widely understood) history behind it.
And yeah, “extra” doesn’t mean a damn thing. IIRC, the word “extra” enters the picture in the mid 20th Century when dry vermouth producers were trying to outdo each other with milder and—most crucially—colorless products. Their problem was that the perceived quality of the martini had become inversely associated with how tinted it was by the vermouth. In a nutshell, a tinted martini was interpreted (particularly by drunks) as containing too much vermouth and not enough booze: i.e., poorer value to the customer and (by false implication) a less desirable flavor. So, bottom-feeder vermouth producers set about filtering the yellow out of their vermouth and were marketing themselves as “extra dry”. We still see “extra” on some vermouth labels, today.
Along the way, many customers—insecure and easily confused as they are—started prefixing their martini orders with “extra”. They might as well have been saying “five star” or please-serve-me-a-side-order-of-validation. People who order an “extra dry martini” simply don’t know what they’re talking about, but are fervently convinced that they do. They believe they have uttered expert, magic words. I’ve had to conclude that many people who order martinis don’t even particularly like the drink, they just like what they think it confers as an accessory to their appearance and ego. You can hand these people virtually any ratio of martini and they will be perfectly happy as long as they can retain the illusion.
The bald truth, of course, is that the martini is just about as simple a mixed drink as exists, and—as you point out—is wonderful in so very many different ratios and combinations of products. And, yes, it needn’t be “dry” at all. When unsuspecting friends and acquaintances find their way to my lair, a sweet martini is often their reward. I’ve never had one rejected, even by people I’ve previously overhead pontificating.
I can imagine being the type of bartender who would give these people a healthy splash of vermouth and not tell them, and I can imagine being the type of bartender who would give these people straight gin, but I can’t imagine being the type of bartender who would assume that bothering with a 5 mL vermouth rinse would make the difference in their happiness.
I wrote a whole chapter about this subject in my 2019 book “The Martini Cocktail.” You may want to check it out. Put simply, a “dry” martini, in the days before Prohibition, meant a Martini made with dry vermouth as well as London dry gin, as opposed to the Old Tom gin and sweet vermouth used in the earlier Martinis. After Prohibition, the meaning of “dry” changed to refer to the amount of vermouth used; the less vermouth, the drier the Martini. Anyone who orders a dry Martini today is referring to the amount of vermouth, not the type of vermouth.