The Perfect (Summer) Cocktail: The Martini

I like to have a martini, two at the very most. After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host.

With due deference to Dorothy Parker, the point of having a martini isn't to get tipsy — any sort of rot gut in sufficient quantity will accomplish that. No, the martini is about the means, not the end. It's about being part of grand tradition. It's about arriving.

This deceptively simple cocktail — two ingredients, the bare minimum to even be classified as such — puts you in league with the legenday Algonquin Round Table that Parker graced, master spy James Bond, and Nick Charles, the suave detective from the fertile (and frequently marinated) mind of Dashiel Hammet.

As the New York Times wrote upon the 2010 reprint of "The Hour," the 1948 classic:

In days of yore, American men were expected to have opinions about drink. A signature cocktail, and how to mix it, mattered. It was part of the male identity, like the ability to grill meat or change a carburetor.

I neither grill meat nor know what a carburetor even does. But I do make a mean martini.

There are many "summer" drinks, from frozen cocktails (frozen margarita was a close second for this piece) to ice-cold beer. All will do. But as you commune with the sunset and imagine that better place, there is nothing like that cocktail for all seasons: The very dry martini.

The perfect martini is exactly three things: Gin, vermouth and tender loving care. It's a cooling tonic in the summer and a warming hearth-side companion in winter and a loyal friend you shouldn't abandon in spring and fall.

Though the perfect martini is comprised of few ingredients, it does require lots of attention to detail. There are two rules:

1. Keep everything very cold

2. Disturb the gin

Bond insists his martini be shaken and not stirred (He also predominantly ordered his "martini" made with vodka — so what does he know). The conventional wisdom is that a martini should be stirred because it bruises the gin.

Poppycock.

The truth is that neither shaking nor stirring is violent enough to unleash the full bouquet of botanicals in the gin. Instead, bruise it. Pummel it mercilessly.

But ... first things first. You start making your first martini the day before you drink it.

Acquire a thick beer mug, fill it about a third with ice cubes and put it in the freezer, right next to your bottle of gin. Your classic martini shaker just doesn't retain cold as well and, as I said, we won't be doing any shaking during tomorrow evening's Hour. You'll keep that mug going indefinitely, with traces of martinis long-ago imbibed infusing the next one you make.

Your gin of choice is very personal and, on this subject at least, I don't presume to preach. Some gins are indicated if you intended to garnish with cucumbers or a twist. I'm an olive purist and have settled, after adequate research, on Bombay Sapphire.

Keep your vermouth in the fridge — it'll freeze in the freezer since it's relatively light on alcohol. Keep the bottle right next to the olives you won't be dropping into your martini. Ever.

When The Hour approaches put ice in your martini glass — crushed, if you have it — and fill with water. I know what you're thinking: Why not just keep the glass in the freezer or fridge? Two words: Cold stem.

Allow the glass to chill while you prepare your accompaniments. For me, that's about a dozen garlic-stuffed olives, as many cherry tomatoes and nibbler pretzels and some sliced shallots. The combination of salt, acid sharp and sweet is as intoxicating as the martini itself. If you have them, crimini mushrooms with a bit of deli mustard also go on the tray.

OK: Your glass is ready. The rest happens pretty quickly — water is your enemy.

Splash some vermouth over the ice in your mixing mug. I used an eyedropper for a while (a dozen drops, if you must know) but before long you'll be able to eyeball it. As ridiculous as it is to use no vermouth it's almost worse to use too much; it is the subtle difference between enhancing the initial rush and overpowering the gin.

Now cover the cubes with gin. That will give you a hefty cocktail that still won't go to the brim. Nothing says "He needs help" like the sight of you leaning over to the glass to sip enough so it won't spill when you pick it up.

Use a muddler to agitate the mix. Don't be gentle. Some will splash on your hands and despite this regrettable waste it is a necessary cost of perfection. Just remember to use a towel to dry your hands, because nothing says "He needs help" like the sight of you licking your fingers.

Now, as quickly as you can, cap your mixing mug with a strainer and pour the ice water out of your martini glass — God gave you two hands, right?

Pour in your martini. Sip. Repeat.

For 50+ more summer favorites from Influencers, check out the full Influencer Summer Guide here.

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