hexeme | bringing people to the geeks and geeks to the people

I’m a lazy guy. Really lazy — professionally lazy. Computer scientists are paid to find the easiest, laziest solutions to hard problems. This spills over into my domestic life all the time. Cutting all the corners I can and still arriving at a reasonable, efficient, delicious solution is cathartic — narcotic — a religious experience.

I’m also an avid drinker. Cocktails are the pinnacle of human creation. It has taken thousands of years of social, economic, and technological progress to develop an environment that fosters the marriage of gin and vermouth.

Here’s where the laziness comes in — cocktails are delicious delectations that I cannot be bothered to make properly. You need a shaker, a handy source of ice, their associated accoutrements, and finally, you need to clean all these things between uses. Cleaning is the bane of an enjoyable evening; the antithesis of the mood cocktails engender.

Hence bitch martinis.

What makes a bitch martini? Simple. Forget the shaker. Forget the strainer. Mix your drink right in the glass, on the rocks. It’s not perfect, but it’s still pretty damned good, and it saves so much time and effort. Purists will scorn leaving ice in the glass, melting into your ingredients, but this is a oft-debated topic anyway. Besides, some people — and I think this is crazy — don’t like the taste of liquor. (Don’t get me started on people who shoot whiskey — is nothing sacred!?) Leaving in the ice can take the edge off, which is a good argument to introduce tasty drinks to folks who don’t appreciate them.

So here I’ll present one of my favorite bitch martinis, with the promise of more in coming entries. I call it an “Ambassador” — if anyone recognizes it by another name, let me know.

Ambassador

• One shot of gin. I prefer regular old Bombay Dry Gin; Bombay Sapphire is a little overpowering for this drink. And never, never use cheap gin. Might as well just drink antifreeze.
• A splash of creme de menthe. Comes in green or clear, I always use the clear, but I doubt it matters much.
• One or two dashes of angostura bitters

Pour the above ingredients, in that order, in a rocks glass over a single ice cube, and mix. I usually just swirl it in my hand — no spoon to clean either.

It’s a good drink to get accustomed to the taste of gin if you’re not used to it; sort of a stepping-stone to the classic martini that noobs find unapproachable. And you have to like gin if you’re ever going to fully appreciate cocktails.