Martini

Martini is an Italian vermouth, named after the Martini & Rossi distillery. It is produced in four versions (dry, white, red and pink). Martini & Rossi also produces the famous Chinamartini.

See also: List of famous Italian firms

The martini is a popular cocktail traditionally made with about two ounces of gin and a dash of dry vermouth, though other recipes may be used.

The ingredients are shaken or stirred with ice and then strained in to a cocktail glass, and usually garnished with an olive, or less often with lemon rind.

The benefit of the olive is to add salt, as bar olives are usually preserved in brine.

A martini made with salt tastes quite different from one without.

A "dry" martini is one made with less vermouth; a "very dry" Martini is basically a cold glass of gin (though the ice will contribute some water to the final drink as well).

A standard witticism is to observe that "there was vermouth in the house once."

European culture has created almost a mythology around the martini: the James Bond character from the Ian Fleming novels, for example, is famous for ordering his "shaken, not stirred", and other devotees of the drink have similar irrational preferences for the technique of making the drink.

The martini is used as a symbol for cocktails and nightlife in general; American bars often have a picture of a conical martini glass with an olive on their signs.

Many variations exist on the standard martini described above:

A Vodka Martini is made the same way but with vodka instead of gin, and more often uses lemon rind as the garnish.
A Dirty Martini has some of the brine from the olive jar added.
A Naked Martini is made without ice, but with the ingredients and glass chilled.
A Sweet Martini is made with sweet red vermouth, and may be garnished with a maraschino cherry instead of an olive.
James Bond's Martini in the novel Casino Royale is made with three measures of gin, one measure of vodka, and half a measure of vermouth, shaken until chilled, and with lemon peel for garnish. When Smirnoff bought product placement in the Bond movies, 007's signature drink was changed to a vodka martini (or Bollinger champagne).

Sometimes the term "Martini" is used to refer to other mostly-hard-liquor cocktails such as Manhattans and Cosmopolitans.

Beginning in the late 1990s, a wide variety of cocktails have been given the name "martini" despite containing neither gin nor vermouth; the only thing they have in common is the cocktail glass in which they are served.