Name-dropping:
Martini (mar-TEE-nee) (developed around 1900).
These days, of course, you can get anything in a martini glass: apple martinis, chocolate martinis, serve-your-own mashed potatoes. But the original martini is the only cocktail you’ll ever need to look sophisticated. Probably the single best—or worst, if you hate olives—result of Prohibition in America.

When to Drop Your Knowledge:
Well, if your angle is stuffy pretension, you can bring up the real martini whenever people start drinking wimpy vodka martinis. But even if you’re not an obnoxious purist when it comes to drinking, you’ll have ample opportunity to talk martinis. People love to talk about drinking when they’re drinking.

The Basics
It started with the Martinez. Back in 19th-century California, the Martinez was a drink featuring a shot of gin and two shots of dry vermouth, cherry juice, and a lemon slice. Around 1900, someone got an idea: “If we had more gin than vermouth and got rid of the cherry juice, we could sure get drunk a lot faster.” Not a bad idea. Add an olive, and the martini was born! As H. L. Mencken once put it, the martini is “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.”

Traditionally, a martini consists of 1.5 ounces of gin, .5 ounce of dry vermouth, ice, and an olive (other acceptable garnishes include lemon twists, capers, or cocktail onions). The drink quickly gained in popularity, but it wasn’t until Prohibition that the martini became the American cocktail. When booze was legal, Americans on the whole preferred drinking whiskey. But it takes skill and time to make good whiskey, whereas pretty much any sap with a bathtub in the woods can make a few gallons of bathtub gin. Vermouth’s central purpose in the Prohibition days was to improve the taste of the gin.

When Prohibition ended, gin stopped tasting like burning gasoline. That’s when the dry martini truly came into fashion. A dry martini has a mere splash of vermouth, and soon, martinis were so incredibly dry that they were often just gin on the rocks with an olive. For those who want just a hint of vermouth, we suggest “coating the cubes,” which involves pouring vermouth over the ice and then pouring the vermouth back into the bottle. After falling out of favor in the 1970′s, the martini has made a comeback. And although martini purists scoff at the endless varieties, the old standby remains a cocktail party favorite.

Shaken, Not Stirred
James Bond is perhaps the most famous of all martini drinkers. His trademark order, “shaken, not stirred,” has been a catchphrase for decades. Only one problem: James Bond does not drink martinis, which contain only gin, vermouth, and an olive. Real martinis are generally best stirred, not shaken. But Bond drinks vodka martinis. Martini snobs will tell you it’s the equivalent of racing in the Tour de France on a bike with a banana seat. Shaking a drink does cool it faster, though, which is necessary because warm vodka martinis taste like olive-flavored lighter fluid. And Bond clearly knew this. In Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), Bond tells the bartender: “Shake it very well until it’s ice cold.” Today, the vodka martini is probably more popular than the orignial, perhaps due in part to 007, but mostly because gin is an acquired taste that many people just never really acquire.

As perviously noted, martinis are considered best when stirred. However, it’s possible that shaken martinis might improve you longevity. A recent study in the British Medical Journal argued that shaken martinis may release more antioxidants than stirred martinis. The antioxidant properties of alcohol are thought to help prevent heart attacks and stroke. But if you really want antioxidants (and still want to get drunk) avoid martinis altogether and drink some red wine.

The Quotable Martini
“One martini is all right, two is too many, and three is not enough.” —James Thurber

“I like to have a martini/Two at the very most./Three, I’m under the table/Four, I’m under the host.” —Dorothy Parker

“Happiness is a dry martini and a good woman. Or a bad woman.” —George Burns

Conversation Starters
◆ Ernest Hemingway called his martini recipe a “Montgomery.” It featured a gin to vermouth ratio of 15:1. Hemingway named it after Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery—whom, the joke went, required a 15:1 advantage before he’d go into battle.

◆ Early film actor W. C. Fields is today remembered primarily for being extremely funny about his intractable alcoholism. This is a man who drank two bottles of gin a day when he was in rehab. Fields always kept a thermos filled with a gigantic martini on the sets of his films, but he invariably referred to it as “pineapple juice.” One day, a member of the film crew decided to play a prank on Fields. After taking a swig from the thermos, Fields cried, “Somebody put pineapple juice in my pineapple juice!”

◆ During World War II, French vermouth became exceedingly rare in Britain, but noted prime minister and alcoholic Winston Churchill wasn’t going to let that stop him from drinking his martinis. Instead, it is said that he took his martinis very, very dry: He poured himself a glass of gin over ice, plopped an olive in the glass, and then tipped his glass in the direction of France.

◆ Speaking of Churchill and booze: Most people know the “I may be drunk, but I’ll be sober tomorrow and you’ll still be ugly” story, but our favorite Churchill boozing story goes like this: Lady Astor to Churchill: “Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink.” Churchill in response: “Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.”