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When is National Martini Day? Always June 19th!
Origin of this Holiday
Our research did not find the creator, or the origin of this day. We did however find that this holiday has been celebrated for years. There is plenty of documentation to support that this holiday does indeed exist.
We are wondering if this holiday was created by a food or drink organization- but, our research couldn't find the answer to this question-
This holiday is referred to as a "National" day., as all food & drink holidays are. However, we did not find any congressional records or presidential proclamations for this day. Even though we didn't, this is still a holiday that is publicized to celebrate.
So have fun with it and celebrate it!
We found recognition about this holiday from:
Calendar sites and personal Internet sites that blog and share information about this holiday.
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Preparation:
"While variations are many, a standard modern martini is an approximate four to one ratio, made by combining approximately two ounces (or 55ml) of Gin, and approximately half an ounce (or 15ml) of dry vermouth. Some prefer somewhat less vermouth—about a five or six to one proportion of gin to vermouth. Many bartending schools insist that a cocktail shaker tends to dull the taste of the vermouth, and some argue that it sharpens the taste of gin by "bruising" the liquid. However, it is relatively common to see a bartender mix a martini with a shaker due in part to the influence of popular cultural figures such as the fictional super-spy James Bond, who asked for his vodka martinis "shaken, not stirred" (such a martini is traditionally referred to as a "Bradford", and super-sleuth Nick Charles (William Powell) in The Thin Man (1934), who instructed a bartender, "A dry Martini you always shake to waltz time." The ingredients are mixed then strained and served "straight up" (without ice) in a chilled cocktail glass, and garnished with either a green olive or a twist of lemon (a strip of the peel, usually squeezed or twisted to express volatile oils onto the surface of the drink)."
"While the standard martini may call for a four to one ratio of distilled spirits to vermouth, aficionados of the dry martini may reduce the proportion of vermouth drastically for a drier martini. Connoisseurs boast of sweetening the cocktail by merely coating the glass with vermouth. The legend holds that Churchill would get as close to the vermouth bottle as to "look at it from across the room". On the other hand, some experts strongly object to this practice, arguing that a cocktail with one predominant ingredient is no cocktail at all, and furthermore, that the term "dry" has nothing to do with the gin-to-vermouth ratio, but with the use of dry, white, French vermouth instead of sweet, red, Italian vermouth."
"A more recent development that further offends martini purists is the use of "martini" (or the suffix "-tini") to refer to any beverage served in a cocktail glass, such as the appletini, the chocolatini, or the pineapple martini."
Martini origins and mixology
"During the days of the California Gold Rush, in 1849, a miner struck it rich and was returning to San Francisco. The miner, arriving in Martinez, the first large town he hit, wanted to celebrate. He walked into our leading bar and asked for Champagne, a beverage which was not available. However, the bartender told him (the miner) that he had something much better than Champagne and served a drink which the bartender said was a "Martinez Special". The miner liked the drink and ordered for the house. After he woke up, some time later, he proceeded on to San Francisco where he immediately went to a prominent bar and ordered a "Martinez Special". The bartender of course had never heard of the drink and asked the miner how it was made and where he had heard of the drink. The miner said that the drink was made with one part of very dry Sauterne wine and three parts of Gin, stir with ice and finish with an olive and was made in Martinez. The bartender tried the drink himself and liked it and of course had his friends drink it. Over a period of years the name Martinez became Martini."
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See Also:
Mixed Drinks / List of Coctails /
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Resources:
What is a Martini? "The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth. Sometimes, vodka is substituted for gin, although this is properly called a vodka martini or vodkatini. The drink is almost always garnished with an olive or, less commonly, a sliver of lemon peel. It is often described as being "crisp". Over the years, the martini has become one of the most well-known mixed alcoholic beverages. H. L. Mencken once called the martini "the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet", and E. B. White called it "the elixir of quietude". It is the drink of the one-time "three-martini lunch" of business executives, now largely abandoned due to company "fitness for duty" programs."
The martini is one of six basic drinks listed in David A. Embury's classic The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, along with many other favorite cocktails.
