Is It 5 O'Cocktail Yet?

Ever since I went to bartending school, I can't wait for 5 o'clock to roll around so I can have a cocktail. 

Okay, fine.  Keep it down now.  I'll rephrase...

Ever since I went to bartending school, I have a good excuse to indulge in a cocktail every evening.  I need to maintain my skills.  (That's all you're getting out of me.)

Truth be told, since I left my job, the clock slowly ticks along and sometimes I find myself finished with the house work and looking for that drink to start to wind down.  Only to realize it's 10:30.  In the morning.  It's pretty pathetic. 

For everyone who says "it's 5:00 somewhere," there is someone else who says "it's noon somewhere."  I've always been the one to say the latter, but I am fully aware that if I start drinking at noon, at home all by myself, I'm screwed.  So I diligently wait for my husband to come home from work so we can enjoy a drink together before dinner. 

For a while, I was experimenting with martinis.  B is a gin guy, and he's fairly straightforward with his drinks.  He likes his martini up, dry and with three olives.  In the summer he'll switch over to Hendricks, and he'll swap his three olives for a cucumber garnish if they have it.  I got him to give the lemon twist a try as I thought it would be a nice complement to the cucumber flavored gin.  (He's a convert!) 

Me, I'm a vodka girl.  Grey Goose specifically.  I prefer my martinis straight up and dirty, with three olives.  But depending on my mood, I'll mix it up a little.  A very little.  Sometimes I'll ask for it on the rocks, sometimes I ask for it extra dirty (generally that's only at places that seem to think that "dirty" means add olives, not olive brine). 

I've come to the conclusion that the only place I can consistently order a good Dirty Martini is at Grill 23 in Boston.  And to be honest... Adam needs to be the one who makes it for me.  (I'll throw some love Chris's way too, but he moved to the left coast a while back and Adam's the only one I can count on now.)  As a result, I've made my move towards Gimlets. 

Here's another drink that consistently gets screwed up.  I swear on my husband's life that one time I ordered a Grey Goose Gimlet, on the rocks, and it was served to me in a brandy snifter.  A brandy snifter.  (Hello, rocks glass, anyone?) 

But I'm getting off track... the point of this column is to talk about the martini experimentation I've been doing.  And by martini, I mean a martini - not a cocktail.  I do not agree that a Cosmopolitan or a Lemon Drop is a martini.  Just because you serve it in a martini glass doesn't mean it's a martini.  A martini is gin or vodka, maybe with a dash of vermouth, maybe with a dash of something acidic (like lime juice, or olive brine... even though technically lime juice makes it a gimlet, which is not a martini, but it's closer still than a Cosmopolitan, or heaven forbid, an Appletini).  A martini is not pink.  Or blue, or green, or yellow. 

Since I tend to love the acidic martinis, I wanted to see what else I could come up with.  I so far have tried four variations on my beloved Dirty Martini/Gimlet.

·        Dill Pickle Martini:  vodka with pickle brine, garnished with a pickle slice.  Good idea in theory, not so good in execution.  Maybe sweet pickles would work better, but I don't like sweet pickles so I'm not going to try it.

·        Greek Martini:  vodka with kalamata olive brine, garnished with feta stuffed kalamata olives.  Honestly, not too bad, but could be better.  In my haste, I bought a jar of kalamata olives that were pre-stuffed with feta cheese.  I think if I went to the olive bar, and bought some good feta, this could be a real crowd pleaser.

·        Caprese Martini:  vodka with balsamic vinegar, garnished with a petite skewer of cherry tomato, fresh bite sized mozzarella and two basil leaves.  The balsamic vinegar colored the vodka to the point that it looked like bourbon, so it felt like I was drinking a real effed up Manhattan.  Not terrible per se, but I didn't really like it.  I think if I reduced the balsamic into a syrup and dressed the glass with it, it might have been better.  I'll keep working on this one.

But the piece de resistance, my pride and joy, my absolute go to drink, the drink I can't live without, the one that makes me fear getting pregnant and having to quit drinking for the better part of a year and the one that makes me watch the clock all day... 

·        Pepperoncini Martini: vodka with pepperoncini brine, and garnished with a pepperoncini.  (For those who don't know, a pepperoncini is a pickled hot Italian pepper.)

And hold off on the cute names.  It's not a Pepperontini.  Nor is it a Pepperoncini-Tini.  And it's not a Hot and Dirty, as I've heard it is called in places that have had similar genius as I.  (As you can probably glean from my earlier comments, I do not think martini and cute go together.)

The Pepperoncini Martini has ruined me for other martinis, to the extent that I will order a Gimlet instead of a Dirty Martini every time I'm out because the olive flavor cannot hold a candle to the pepperoncini flavor.  At least in my humble opinion.

I'm actually at this minute trying to determine how inappropriate it would be to bring a little plastic container of Pepperoncini Martini fixings to Grill 23 later this week... Pretty inappropriate, huh?  I mean, it is a nice, upscale restaurant.  Let me give it some more thought.