Two Drink Minimum; The After 5 Cocktail Blog

This shaken or stirred martini debate will continue on forever. Or at least until a new Bond figures out how to make a martini a better way. And really who cares.. Have you ever sent a martini back to the bartender because it you heard it being shaken and not stirred? Doubt it.. and if you did you weren’t thirsty enough. I don’t think I have ever sent one back, ever. Maybe for more olives but not for lack of stirring or shaking. Well, so being the martini lover that I am I thought this shaken stirred debate warranted a little study. To the books I dove. And to my surprise there is a difference. Subtle but there is scientific evidence that states that there is a physical difference between the shaken and the stirred martini. Scientists, biochemists, and martini lovers did research to determine the difference and came up with some hard data. According to a study at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario in Canada to determine if the preparation of a martini has an influence on their antioxidant capacity, the shaken gin martinis were able to break down hydrogen peroxide and leave only 0.072% of the peroxide behind, versus the stirred gin martini which left behind 0.157% of the peroxide. The study was done at the time because moderate consumption of alcohol appears to reduce the risk of cataracts, cardiovascular disease, and stroke, none of which afflict the fictional James Bond.

Andrew Lycett, an Ian Fleming biographer, believed that Fleming liked his martinis shaken, not stirred because Fleming thought that stirring a drink diminished its flavour. Lycett also noted that Fleming preferred gin and vermouth for his martini. A subject that we will blog about later. It has also been said that Fleming was a fan of martinis shaken by Hans Schröder, a German bartender. Some connoisseurs believe that shaking gin is a faux pas, supposedly because the shaking “bruises” the gin (a term referring to a slight bitter taste that can allegedly occur when gin or vodka is shaken). Others contend that Bond was only shaking because of the vodka it contained. Prior to the 1960s, vodka was, for the most part, refined from potatoes (usually cheaper brands). This element made the vodka oily. To disperse the oil, Bond ordered his martinis shaken; thus, in the same scene where he orders the martini, he tells the barman about how vodka made from grain rather than potatoes makes his drink even better. This does not explain why Bond in the films still preferred his drink to be shaken rather than stirred, because beginning mostly in the 1960s vodka refined from potatoes was virtually replaced by vodka refined by grains such as corn and wheat or by other ingredients such as grapes and soybeans.

Other reasons for shaking tend to include making the drink colder or as Bond called it, ice-cold. Shaking allows the drink to couple with the ice longer thus making it far colder than if it were to be stirred. Shaking is also said to dissolve the vermouth better making it less oily tasting. While properly called a Bradford, shaken martinis also appear cloudier than when stirred. This is caused by the small fragments of ice present in a shaken martini.

My guess is that Fleming needed to spruce up the aura of the martini for the admired, intellectual, manly man, James Bond and create a particular “Bond” way of drinking the cocktail. This added mystique or interest has given rise to the popularity of the distinguished martini cocktail. The martini will eternally be associated with James and his ways and with that association is why we love martinis.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.