Unique Facts about Martini

No one seems to know for sure how or when the Martini was created. It had to be sometime between the years 1862 and 1876. The exact ingredients have varied over the years. There is no idea when the olive came to be in a Martini. The first item in a Martini was a cherry.

By one widely accepted account, the martini is a descendant of the Martinez, an older, sweeter, but similar cocktail, which consists of (approximately) two ounces of sweet vermouth, one ounce gin (specifically, Old Tom gin, a sweetened variant), two dashes maraschino cherry liquid, and one dash bitters, shaken with ice, strained, and served with a twist of lemon. The Martinez purportedly originated in California in the 1870’s, probably either in San Francisco or in the town of Martinez. Some versions of this account are more specific, crediting the Martinez to Jerry Thomas, a famous and influential bartender working the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco in the late 1850s or 1860s.