Last week’s martini post was superseded by Good Friday. The good news this Friday is that you are free to engage in additional field research at the local bar.
Those who are serious about their research and martini history need to check out Martini, Straight Up, by Lowell Edmunds.
Bernard DeVoto called it the “supreme American gift to world culture,” and H. L. Mencken said that it was “the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet.” FDR served a Martini to Stalin at the Teheran Conference in 1943 and asked him how he liked it. “Well, all right,” the Russian said, “but it is cold on the stomach.” Stalin’s successor was served a stronger Martini than the rather bland sort that FDR mixed. Khrushchev called it “the U.S.A.’s most lethal weapon.”
You see, it has serious political implications. I also noticed this unassailable observation:
[The Martini's] return in the 1990s is the return of the image. Only a few diehards still drink the old straight-up gin Martini. . . .
I guess that makes me a diehard.
(Image by Ken30684 - Creative Commons)
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