Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/590511
I n the 1934 movie The Thin Man, based on Dashiell Hammett's novel of the same name, there is a scene where Nora Charles, played by the incomparable and incomparably beautiful Myrna Loy, tracks down her debonair and lighthearted detective husband Nick Charles, played by the debonair and lighthearted William Powell, at an elegant Manhattan restaurant. He is seated at a table with a martini glass in his hand. "How many martinis have you had?" she asks. "This is my sixth." Nora turns to the waiter. "Bring me six martinis, please." That was, once, the essence of the of cocktail onion, or a pimento, or a sliver of almond; a generous two-to-one blend of gin and vermouth or the barest hint of vermouth (Noël Coward is reported to have stated that, "A perfect martini should be made by filling the glass with gin and then waving it in the general direction of Italy."); shaken or stirred (James Bond was famous for his insistence on the former, and in Casino Royale creates his own variation of the martini, called a vespers, after the canonical hour of evensong, which comes at sunset); instead of onion, just a tiny spoonful of the onion juice . . . The possibilities go on and we could all get a little crazy here. For purposes of simplicity and brevity, we will assume p o r t i n g L i f e S Jameson Parker I like to have a Martini, Two at the very most After three I'm under the table, After four I'm under my host. – Attributed to Dorothy Parker S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 4 7 martini: urban and urbane, elegant, sophisticated, the drink of choice of witty and charming and well-heeled people of a certain social echelon, the ideal precursor to elegant dining, the mainstay of the cocktail party that was itself once the mainstay of social life. O f course, whatever was served to Nick and Nora Charles is anybody's guess, because the term "martini" covers a wide swath of possibilities: gin or vodka; sweet vermouth or dry; additional orange or aromatic bitters; lemon twist or olive or capers or cocktail onion (if you add a cocktail onion it becomes, technically, a Gibson); if olive is the choice, it can be stuffed with a bit CosmoPolitan Story IlluStratIon by J. FrederIck SmIth – courteSy herItage auctIonS – ha.com