[babalu87]

New Amsterdam Gin

Trust me on this as well 

[nicneufeld]

If I remember New Amsterdam gin properly, and I may not, but it was light enough on the juniper that it might as well have been a vodka!  I could be misremembering that.

I'm a traditionalist at heart so I would stand with the gin partisans, leaving an exception for vodka martinis, but they have always struck me as a bit of a waste of gin...just to my taste.  I like my gin with lime, tonic, or bitters, or some combination thereof.  And I like my vermouth sweet and closely chaperoned with a good bourbon or rye whiskey!

[livefreebrewfree]

dirty... make that filthy gin martini with a whisper of vermouth and bleu cheese stuffed olives!

[euge]

Got some more Tito's though I think Dripping Springs is the way to go.

I had to buy a huge 1.75L bottle of Sapphire but next to it was a much cheaper (and much smaller) bottle of New Amsterdam. Almost bought it.


Oh! It's a little disconcerting when the botanicals nearly hide the Vermouth.

The Sapphire is good. Heady Botanicals and goes well with the olives I got at local Central Market: Habanero and Blue cheese stuffed and some spiced ones. The first one- Blue cheese after sitting in the gin was probably the best stuffed-olive I've ever had sober.

I concur gin is better with tonic & limes. It needs bitter/sour to balance it out. Same as an olive...

[MrNate]

Tanqueray and Martini & Rossi - Wet and dirty, extra olives. Shaken.

Vodka in martinis is an abomination.

[tygo]

Well, how about we just call it a vodka cocktail with vermouth and olives to avoid offending the traditionalists.....nah, Vodka martini's all the way!   

Ketel One, half a capful of dry vemouth, a splash of olive juice, and two sundried tomato stuffed olives for me.

[richardt]

The 007 character likes to do things "to the extreme," but bartenders disagree with his "shaken, not stirred" line.
http://www.chow.com/stories/11942

I stir my Beefeater gin, diet tonic, and twist of lime.  I just love the botanicals and citrus notes.
I find Tanqueray and Bombay to be drier, more subtle, and more expensive.

The tonic, by itself, works wonders for restless legs/nighttime leg cramps.  I always keep a few bottles of it in the house just for that reason.  I'm unsure if it is due to the quinine or the various ions in the tonic, but 4-6 ounces of tonic just takes care of the problem.  Whether or not you add the other stuff is your choice. 

[euge]

I've had "three" of the habanero olives. Whew! I'm used to eating hot stuff but they're a little bit stronger than a serrano. Tolerable though. Chili Petin is hotter.

Wake you the f up I tell you what!

[capozzoli]

Gin with a little splash of Campari, may already be called something but I call it a Raped Martini.

[euge]

Been experimenting with garnishes. How's this? Piece of choice NY strip (medium), jalapeño Muenster and olive...

You get a snack and a drink!



Cap it's an official drink:http://www.barnonedrinks.com/drinks/c/campari-martini-1085.html There's another with Campari, Gin and Vermouth called Dirty Dick's Downfall.

[babalu87]

Been experimenting with garnishes. How's this? Piece of choice NY strip (medium), jalapeño Muenster and olive...

You get a snack and a drink!

Thats HAWT!

[chumley]

I like Beefeater's for martinis, Tanqueray for gin and tonics.

But since I am a really cheap bastard, I usually both with Seagrams. 

I also like my martinis on the rocks, as I like them cold, and find if I have them neat, I drink them too fast (before they warm up).

+1 to swirling the vermouth around in the glass, then pouring it back in the bottle.

[Jeff Renner]

I have some definite thoughts on this subject, without going into the heresy of calling a vodk .... .   Oh, that's right, I said I wouldn't go into that.

So while I certainly recognize that you should be free to drink whatever you want, I ask those of you who like dirty martinis to consider the care that the master distiller went to to chose perhaps more than a dozen botanicals, in careful proportions, for the gin, and then what splashing in olive brine does to that careful balance.  You might as well use bottom shelf domestic wino gin.

When Tanqueray Ten came out what, some ten or more years ago?, I fell in love with it.  Much more up-front than my long time favorite, Beefeaters.  So I used that in my martinis, except when I could score an even more in-your-face gin, Anchor's Junipero from my sister in California.

But after a while, I found these tiring, and so my wife and I tried a blind taste off of these two vs. Beefeaters, with Seagram's thrown in as well.  Gin:vermouth @ 5:1.  We did Tanqueray Ten vs. Junipero and Beefeaters vs. Seagrams, then the winner of each vs. one another.

The winner?  Good ol' Beefeaters for its finesse without being wimpy.  What I started with 40+ years ago!  [Hey you kids, get off my lawn!]

[Jeff Renner]

Oh, and I prefer to shake, hard, for about 45 seconds, to break up the ice cubes.  I love to pour my martini into a glass from the freezer and see slivers of ice float up into a layer on the surface of the martini.

[pyrite]

For some reason I prefer my Kettle One vodka martini (dish water dirty with 2 olives, shaken with ice slivers) in a stemless martin glass, or a bucket.  It's not that I'm that particular about glassware but, I just feel stem glassware are easier to break.