How to Mix a Martini

Hi, I'm Joe Campanale. You're watching eHow.com, and today we're going to make The Classic Martini cocktail and a variation on the martini called The Dirty Martini. So, in The Classic Martini cocktail you start with three ounces of gin, one ounce of white French Vermouth, which is the dry Vermouth and then you fill up your glass with ice. So you want to stir the cocktail until the glass is cold so it's about 10 to 20 seconds and you know the martini is the classic before dinner aperitif cocktail. When it's done right, it's very fresh, very clean and it's not too heavy. So now, my glass is cold and now what I'm going to do is add just a few dashes of bitters to balance it out and you take a chilled martini glass. So, to chill the glass I've added ice and water to the glass. If you have room in your freezer you could put a couple of the glasses in your freezer but here we're a very very small wine bar so we chill our glasses and your julep strainer, put it right over and you pour it out and that is your Classic martini. Now, I always ask if our guests want either an olive garnish or a lemon twist. I really like lemon twists. It's a little bit harder if you don't use a whole lemon. So, squeeze the twist and that releases all of the essential oils and just rim the glass and there you go, that's your Classic Martini. And now we're going to do a variation on the Classic Martini called The Dirty Martini. In a Dirty Martini instead of gin you're going to substitute vodka so use your favorite vodka. It doesn't have to be the most expensive one. Use about three ounces of vodka and then you're going to use the olive juice and literally this is the olive juice just from your jar of olives that you get at the market. So depending on how Dirty, I always ask if a guest wants a Dirty Martini, do you like it Dirty or do you like it just a little Dirty, that's how much olive juice you're going to use. Just spoon in some of your olive juice and this guest likes it really dirty. So, I'm going to put in a bunch. And then you add ice to your glass and since this is a martini we're going to be stirring it and not shaking it and you want to stir any sort of, any sort of drink that's just spirits and if you're using juice and you want to make a very frothy drink then you want to shake it, but if you want sort of that nice silk in texture, then you stir. So, you can stir for about 10 to 20 seconds or if the glass starts to feel cold then you know you have a cold drink. There you go. So now, I take my chilled martini glass, take it out and strain the cocktail into the chilled martini glass and you just want to garnish with olives that have been skewered just like that. And that is the modern variation of The Dirty Martini. Thanks for watching. I'm Joe Campanale, and tune in to eHow.com to see more.