Shaken, stirred, whatever floats your boat



Jamie and I went out for dinner last night to a somewhat upscale local pub. They had large chalkboards with various menu items; appetizers, beers-on-tap, entree specials, etc. One board was their "Martini Menu" which had a list of twelve concoctions, only ONE of which contained gin. Examples include the "Spider Bite" (tequila and lime juice) and the "Red Carpet" (Southern Comfort, melon liqueur, Stoli raspberry and cranberry juice). What bothers me is that these drinks are called "Martinis" when the only common thread I could see was that they're served in Martini glasses. Why not just call them cocktails? I've been watching this bastardization of a venerable apertif for many years and would bet that by now the majority of Martinis made in this country contain no gin. I'm sorry, but if you don't like gin, order something else! If you want to earn the image of James Bond, learn to like gin! It's like wanting to be a Manhattan drinker, but preferring it be made with Kahlua instead of bourbon or rye. The force behind this trend is partly the American attitude of "my preference is all that's valid", but there's also a financial motive; drinking establishments realized that there was an untapped sea of women and girly-men who wanted to be known as Martini-drinkers but hated gin. So an array of syrupy abominations were created to please any palate and sales boomed, tradition be damned.
I have similar hard feelings about what's happened to the Club Sandwich. In the past, a Club could take on a variety of forms but in order to be called a club, it had to have three slices of toasted bread and more than one meat (usually including bacon). They were cut-up nicely in little triangles and held together with frilly toothpicks. Lately I've had clubs with only one meat, clubs on a submarine roll, even clubs in a wrap. Once again, I think the motivation is financial; these counterfeit clubs are less time consuming to prepare and sell well because people expect a club to be a hearty sandwich. But the love and care that went into clubs of yore has vanished. Ahhh...(Chad here's your cue)... to return to the mores of the 1950s....

Posted: Mon - February 21, 2005 at 12:11 PM          

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