A classic martini of Tanqueray gin, Noilly Prat dry vermouth, and two queen olives
29 April 2021
A classic martini is a cocktail: consisting of gin and dry vermouth, garnished with an olive—or for a dry martini skip the vermouth or just uncap the bottle and wave it over the glass, letting some of the fumes deposit on the surface of the gin. One can, if one must, substitute vodka for gin.
The original name for the drink, however, is the Martinez, and the concoction was different from the drink we cherish today. The name first appears in O. H. Byron’s 1884 The Modern Bartender’s Guide:
Manhattan Cocktail, No. 1.
(A small wine-glass.)
1 pony French vermouth.
½ pony whisky.
3 or 4 dashes Angostura bitters.
3 dashes gum syrup.Manhattan Cocktail, No. 2.
2 dashes Curacoa.
2 " Angostura bitters.
½ wine-glass whisky.
½ " Italian vermouth.
Fine ice; stir well and strain into a cocktail glass.Martinez Cocktail.
Same as Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky.
And the name apparently comes from the town of Martinez, California, located on the Carquinez Strait that connects the Sacramento River to the San Pablo and San Francisco Bays, and as best we can tell the drink was invented there in the 1860s. The shortening to martini is probably due to the familiarity of and association of the drink with Martini and Rossi-brand vermouth. The manufacturers of Martini and Rossi filed for a U. S. trademark in 1882, but their vermouth was available in the United States, and specifically in San Francisco, in 1881, if not earlier, under the name of the parent company, Martini and Sola.
The clipped form martini is in place by 1887, when it appears in the pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on 30 June. The article is about a meeting of the Wheelmen’s Club, a bicycling club with a significant social dimension:
I am imformed [sic] that the concentrated and sustained wisdom of the entire entertainment committee exhausted itself in one grand effort. Its culmination, the magnificent, costly and unique bauble concealed within this uncouth wrapping. Search if you will, the blazing corruscations of Tiffany’s; wander amazed through the art galleries of the metropolis; aye, even sample the bewildering depths of the “Martini cocktail,” and you will find nothing that can compare with, meet or equal the elegant tribute that is now about to be bestowed upon you. Take it, my brother, treasure it as a memento of a pleasing hour in your existence and when you shall have fallen from your vigorous manhood and push with faltering feet the worn and broken pedals of life’s tandem may the brake of eternity’s tightening grip upon your lagging wheels bring sharply to your failing memory, bright and clear in the happy halo of the past, the days of fraternal companionship and joy in the old Long Island Wheelmen.
On 22 August 1965, the Oakland Tribune published an article on the history of the martini, which included a third-hand account of its invention. The story is plausible in that it conforms to all we definitely know about the invention of the drink, but the accuracy of the details is unknowable:
Here are the facts given her by former Fire Chief John M. “Toddy” Briones, now a vigorous 91 years of age and also a resident of Martinez.
“The martini cocktail, composed of two-thirds gin, one-third vermouth, a few drops of orange bitters and a green olive, was the invention of Toddy’s brother-in-law, Julio Richelieu, at his bar on Ferry Street in Martinez very nearly 100 years ago.
Richelieu, a young Frenchman who came to Contra Costa via New Orleans, afterwards married Toddy Briones older sister, Belinda. He told Toddy exactly how the Martini was born and how it got its real name.
A miner, en route to San Francisco on horseback, stopped at Richelieu’s bar on Ferry Street located on the site of present day Amato’s Sport Club.
“He asked for a bottle of whiskey, laying a Durham tobacco sack of gold nuggets on the bar near the gold weigh-in scale.” Mrs. Ritch quotes Toddy Briones.
“In those days Richelieu dispensed Jesse Moore whiskey from a barrel only, serving customers by the shot glass. If a man wanted a bottle to take out he brought along his own empty bottle or else paid 25 cents for one of Julio’s.
“The minor, who said he was in a big hurry and didn’t have an extra bottle with him, told Richelieu to take an extra small nugget for the container. At the door, with his purchase in hand, he turned and said:
“‘Bartender, don’t you think I ought to get something extra for all that gold?’
“Richelieu agreed and quickly mixed a few ingredients at random, including a green olive.
“‘Try that,’ he advised.
“The miner, who had watched his every move, tasted the mixture. Smacking his lips, he said, ‘What is this?’
“‘That,’ said Richelieu, ‘is a Martinez cocktail.’
“‘A Martinez? Never heard of it. It’s good.’”
With those words the miner who downed the first cocktail that was to become famous as the martini, walked out of Julio Richelieu’s saloon into obscurity.
Julio Richelieu made many “Martinez” cocktails after that, not only at his Ferry Street place in Martinez, but at two other bars he built and operated in Martinez and at his final place in San Francisco near Lotta’s Fountain on Market Street.
“In Martinez,” the Ritch report continues, “he built a two-story structure on Escobar Street where Nick’s Place now stands, and later a bar at the corner of Thompson Street and Alhambra Avenue, now part of the parking area of the Laird-Lasell complex.
“From Richelieu’s in San Francisco the ‘Martinez’ cocktail spread rather widely. Before the turn of the century it appears on more than one leading hotel menu and on the menu of at least one steamship line.”
Another, less-well-supported version of the invention of the cocktail has Jerry Thomas, who tended bar at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco in the 1860s, and who is also credited with inventing the Tom and Jerry cocktail, creating the first martinez for a traveler who was on his way across the bay to that town. But there is no good reason to think this version of the origin story is true.
Sources:
Almanacco Italo-Svizzero Americano. San Francisco: J. F. Fugazi, 1881, 135. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Byron, O. H. The Modern Bartender’s Guide. New York: Excelsior Publishing, 1884, 21. EUVS Vintage Cocktail Books.
“Don’t say Martini, Say ‘Martinez.’” Oakland Tribune, 22 August 1965, 19-CM, 126. Newspaperarchive.com.
“Long Island Wheelmen.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 30 June 1887, 2. Brooklyn Public Library.
O’Brien, Robert. This Is San Francisco. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948, 143–44. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2020, s.v. martini, n.2.
Tamony, Peter. “Martini Cocktail.” Western Folklore, 26.2, April 1967, 124–27. JSTOR.
Photo credit: Ken Johnson, 2006. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.