From Sir Roger Moore
My dry martinis taste amazing and the day they tell me I’ve got 24 hours to live I am going to have six. Here’s how I make them:
- For a gin martini, use Tanqueray – it’s a soft gin and the best. Put an eggcup measure of Noilly Prat dry vermouth into a V-shaped martini glass and swirl it around to flavour the glass. Then tip the Noilly Prat into the cocktail shaker, swirl it around and throw away what’s left.
- Put a couple of ice cubes into the shaker and add your measure of gin. Ideally, there should be a quarter of an inch of space between the top of the liquid and the top of the glass. If it is up to the rim, it could spill.
- Give the cocktail mixer a little shake – don’t exhaust yourself – and then put it in the freezer.
- Cut a slice of lemon and wipe the rim of the glass with the yellow zest (not the white pith), and put the glass in the freezer.
- Half an hour later you are ready to pour. A proper cocktail shaker has a strainer so the ice cubes remain in it. Funnily enough, the silver shaker we use at our home in Monaco has 007 on it.
- Serve with three little olives on a toothpick dunked in the drink. That way, if I happen to be with you, I can eat one of the olives and enjoy just the suspicion of a dry martini.
My preference is Sipsmith London Dry Gin and Le Quintinye Extra Dry Vermouth but the method the Sir Roger Moore uses is spot on.