Alright, so as the sun at the end of this short working week rolls quietly around toward Cocktail Hour, to get you suitably chilled for that first quenching sip I offer you my slightly revised version of John Doxat's list of literally fantastic martinis from his excellent wee book on the world's greatest drink Stirred--Not Shaken: The Dry Martini (1976):
Author's Note: These are not proper martini-esque mutations, but rhyming names for the Dry Martini in particular or peculiar situations -- actual, fictional, or improbable: readers may care to add their own fancies to this initial list.
SPY MARTINI: The allegedly true instance of a Dry Martini with a 'bugged' olive, to pick up an espionage agent's conversation. (But what happened if he ate it? The C.I.A. declines to comment.)
CRY MARTINI: The sixth or seventh successive double Dry Martini which has induced sentimental or belligerent lachrymosity.
LIE MARTINI: The Dry Martini you tell your partner is your first, when in fact you've had two already.
BANZAI MARTINI: The Dry Martini you charge into. Or charge up.
NIGH MARTINI: Almost a cocktail -- so weak, and insipid, as to barely qualify as a Dry Martini. [See also "making love in a canoe" - Ed.]
TRY MARTINI: If in quotation marks, this is advice to the love-lorn from a practical cynic. Otherwise it is the first, experimental Dry Martini in a bar previously unfamiliar with the drink. Treat with caution.
BULLS-EYE MARTINI; The one that's so good you feel it click when it hits that spot.
FLY MARTINI: Exhortatory slogan composed, after a Three-Martini Lunch, by an advertising copy-writer having trouble with a campaign for a new airline.
THIGH MARTINI: Either the one that clumsy idiot on the next bar stool spills over your trouser leg, or the one that induces the young lady on the next bar stool over to reveal a little more.
SHY MARTINI: The one that induces immediate loss of speech.
FRY MARTINI: A tepid - or heated Martini. In no way recommended.
MY MARTINI: As in, "Just a moment, Buster, that's my Martini you're drinking!"
PIE MARTINI: The glass half-filled by vegetable matter -- huge stuffed olive, outlandish onion, grotesque slice of lemon -- leaving sparse space for liquor.
HIGH MARTINI: One in which your olive may be off.
SLY MARTINI: Order one Dry Martini and one orange juice. Drink the first and have the glass removed. Enter partner: "Are you ready yet?" You respond: "Just let me finish my orange juice."
Speaking of orange juice (which we should rarely do) reminds me of W.C. Fields's famous flask of Dry Martini, kept about him at all times, referring to it as his "orange juice." One the set one day some stage hands emptied the flask and refilled it with the juice. Later came the stentorian Fields's trumpet: "Who's been putting the orange juice in my orange juice?"
PI MARTINI: Short for Pious Martini. A Dry Martini without the gin. Or the pleasure.
TIE MARTINI: A waste of money -- the one you spill down your neckwear.
EYE MARTINI: A dangerous drink signalled by the near verticality of the toothpick, requiring extra caution when elevated to the imbibing position.
PSY MARTINI: A Dry Martini served Gangnam Style.
DRIVE MARTINI: The forth or fifth double Dry Martini after which all vehicular activity should be confined to the passenger seat(s). [See DIE MARTINI for the possible consequences should this advice be ignored.]
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PS: Bonus points if you can name the movie...
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