How sweet it is: in a rainbow of colors and designed to satisfy a sweet tooth, today's Martini is as likely to be dessert as a cocktail

Cheers, March, 2004 by Robert Keane

The American love affair with the Martini began, as have many of our cultural obsessions, with the movies. For drinkers of a certain age, it was William Powell and Myrna Loy in "The Thin Man." Later on it was Sinatra and the Rat Pack or Sean Connery and Roger Moore as James Bond. For a more recent generation of adult drinkers, it's as likely to have been inspired by the would-be hipsters of "Swingers." The simple fact is that Martinis look cool and so do the people drinking them.

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The problem that many young adults have run up against is that the drink in that elegant glass is straight gin or vodka, with a hint of vermouth and slight dilution from ice. For palates that have grown up with an array of soft drinks and fruit juices, that flavor profile can be a little too intense. Earlier generations sucked it up and eventually learned to like the taste of a Martini, which was sort of the penance for being allowed to drink from that symbol of sophistication, the Martini glass.

IT'S THE GLASS

Since it's really all about the glass, modern mixologists have solved the age-old problem in the simplest way possible--they put flavors in that wonderful glass. And for modern American palates a drink that tastes good usually means a drink that has some sweetness to it. In other words, the Sweetini.

The Cosmopolitan, which found success by cutting the vodka with triple sec, lime juice and a splash of cranberry is probably the drink most responsible for the new sweetini subculture. These days the flavor palate of sweetinis runs the spectrum of just about every flavor imaginable including apple, chocolate, raspberry, orange and coffee.

Spirits suppliers have jumped into the game wholeheartedly. Gin and vodka brands have featured Martini glasses in their ads for years, but now so do rums, cordials and other types of spirits. To promote Remy Red, recent ads have featured the Purple Haze Martini, Red Devil Martini and Hot Pink Martini, all made with flavored vodka and the cognac and fruit infusions.

Stewart Slocum, director of beverage marketing, research and development for Carlson Restaurants/Friday's calls new age Martinis the "frou frou drinks of the new millennium" and notes that as a result the Martini concept has been expanding beyond the original vodka and gin profile to flavors and colors and includes every spirit imaginable. "In casual dining, we're still seeing Martinis as primarily a drink for the bar or a pre-meal drink."

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Slocum does note that. "We're seeing men enter the Martini extension trend with drinks like the White Cosmopolitan, which tastes the same but is made with white cranberry juice."

THE DESSERT BAR

With all this activity, it was probably inevitable that the next step would be the dessert Martini.

At the Southern California Burbank Bar and Grille, the Martini menu lists 38 selections. Of those, only four, all variations on the classic Martini or Manhattan, do not include some kind of sweetening agent in the recipe. The menu is a perfect example of how using various flavored vodkas, liqueurs, fruit juices and mixers can open up a world of colorful and tasty profit opportunities. Selections on the BBG Martini Menu run from the expected--Alabama's Peach Martini (Stoli Peach Vodka, peach liqueur, splash of sweet & sour) or Vegas Lemon Drop (Grey Goose Le Citron Vodka, triple sec, lime juice & sugar)--to the exotic--Chocolate Covered Strawberry (Stoli Strasberi, Baileys Irish Cream and creme de cacao) or Key Lime Pie (Stoli Vanil, Rose's Lime Juice, lemonade and whipped cream).

At Bartini, in Portland, OR, there are about 100 offerings on the Martini Menu. Owners Mark and Carla Byrum have designed Bartini as a shrine to the Martini in all its manifestations, so, for traditionalists, the menu lists eight different gins and twelve vodkas with descriptions for each. A selection of olives with different stuffings are offered.

Bartini also offers ten "Martinis From The Garden" such as the Jasminetini (Tuaca, vanilla vodka and jasmine essence) or Sweet Nasturtium (raspberry vodka, cassis, orange juice and champagne with fresh nasturtium petals). All flower Martinis are served in glasses with lavender sugar-laced rims.

For drinkers who fall somewhere between these two extremes, Bartini's menu also lists more than 60 house Martinis priced from $8 to $11 each. A number of these could easily have made it onto the dessert menu and certainly qualify for sweetini status. Found amid a number of unusual concoctions such as the Bagpiper (gin, extra dry vermouth and Scotch) and the Beertini (Bombay Gin and beer) are a number of mixtures bound to satisfy any sweet tooth.

But it's the Martini as dessert where Bartini sets itself apart. Dessert Martinis are given much more play than the actual desserts with 25 of the former and only five of the latter.

Many carry names not usually associated with cocktails including Bananas Foster (banana liqueur, Frangelico, rum and vanilla vodka); Black Forest (amaretto, cherry-infused bourbon, Godiva liqueur and vanilla vodka); Strawberry Cheesecake (vanilla vodka, cranberry juice and grenadine in a graham cracker-rimmed glass topped with strawberry syrup); and Blueberry Cobbler (muddled blueberries with amaretto, Apple Pucker, Bombay Gin and a splash of cranberry in a graham cracker-rim glass).