And what makes a pickled cocktail onion so special, I hear you ask? Well, like everything Martini we’ve discussed so far, the answer is layered just like an onion.Īpart from being a tasty bar snack, a cocktail onion is naturally sweet with a subtle onion flavor. It almost feels as if it’s been lying patiently in wait for its chance to supplant its briny brother the olive. The funny thing is the Gibson has always been here. Suddenly, bars all over the world were serving this classic cocktail, and drinkers were wondering where it had been all their lives. Throughout the series, she single-handedly put the cocktail onion back in vogue. It was the cocktail of choice for the chess prodigy protagonist, Elizabeth Harmon. More recently, the Gibson shot into the limelight once again when it featured in The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. He believed that eating onions prevented colds and we guess he had to find a more palatable way to get them down. The Gibson Martini has been around since the late 1800s, when businessman, Walter D.K Gibson started putting them into his gin Martini. Looking for even more Martinis? Everything You Need to Know About Vermouth. It sounds like such a simple thing, but like every aspect of the Martini, it makes a big difference. Essentially a Gibson is just a regular dry Martini but instead of a lemon twist or olive, it’s garnished with a skewer of two cocktail onions. Now that we’ve covered the Martini bases, we can go back to the Gibson vs Martini debate. The famous Dirty Martini goes a step further and adds equal parts olive brine to dry vermouth. The briny bite and earthy flavor of the olive enhance the bitter edge of the botanicals. If you prefer your Martini with even more kick, then opt for a green olive garnish. The lemon flavor enlivens the botanicals in the Martini and provides a refreshing hit of citrus for balance. The lemon is squeezed over the glass to release the oils and then it’s run around the rim to impart a citrus zing. The classic dry Martini is served with a lemon twist. He also replaced the vermouth with an equally bitter-sweet counterpart in the aromatized wine aperitif. It’s his unique order that makes this a Vesper Martini, but sometimes all you need is a different garnish to change a Martini’s profile. Bond’s case, he completely threw the rule book out the window and ordered a gin and vodka mix. So experiment with a few and find one that suits your taste. Just like gin, the flavor of vermouth varies from brand to brand due to the botanicals used to infuse them. The less vermouth, the drier the Martini, and conversely, the more vermouth, the wetter a Martini becomes.

Vermouth is a bitter-sweet, fortified wine that adds the dry element to the Martini. Just exactly how dry do you want your Martini to be and what does that even mean? This can range from sweet, spicy, or herbaceous to floral, fruity, and even dried fruit flavors.

Gin’s flavor comes from the botanicals that are infused into it. A classic dry Martini is gin and dry vermouth but within those two ingredients lies a vast range of flavor options. It’s the specificity of the order ratios that makes the Martini unique. Just look at James Bond’s Vesper Martini order from Casino Royale - three measures of gin, one of vodka, half a measure of aromatized wine aperitif shaken over ice and garnished with a lemon peel. Martini drinkers are some of the most specific patrons in the world. At its core, it’s a cocktail with just a handful of ingredients-but don’t let the simplicity fool you. The Martini is, without a doubt, one of the most iconic cocktails ever created. We also give you some inside-info to understand the different types of garnishes and how they give a Martini its personality. Which one is better? Which one is more sophisticated? And why does the Gibson get its own name when technically it’s just a Martini? To answer all these questions, we must do a deep-dive into the Martini glass to learn about each ingredient and what they bring to the flavor party. The Gibson vs Martini debate is one that drinkers have long argued about in smoky bars around the world.

Making a gibson drink