WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW ....

 Does the world need another book about the martini?

No, probably not. But I do.  Very much indeed. That’s how the Psychogourmet Martini Library thrives and grows and becomes more authoritative.

 

And so we welcome Alice Lascelles’ Martini, subtitled  “the ultimate guide to a cocktail icon,” though of course we all know there’s no ultimate in these matters.

Anyway it’s a damn fine book, with terrific photographs by Laura Edwards, and if Alice Lascelles’ author bio is to be believed, she’s a heck of a girl.

One very important detail: she obviously understands the importance of the glass in which the martini comes, and on her Instagram feed she’s posted photographs of some of her favourite glasses such as these:

And blow me down – I’ve got some glasses very much like that, although admittedly whereas mine are just black and gold, hers are multicoloured.  

Am I bitter and envious? Only a little.

 

And then rearranging the Martini Library, as you have to do when you get a new acquisition, I realized I had this ancient (well 1966, revised 1969) and somewhat distressed volume.  

It’s Booth’s Handbook of Cocktails and Mixed Drinks by John Doxat. This is not a name I’m very familiar with, although I do know that he too wrote a book, evidently not the ultimate, on the martini.  

I can’t say I’ve used Doxat’s book much, but looking at it last week I saw there was a recipe for a cocktail called the Adonis, not a drink I was at all familiar with, though it’s all over the interwebs, and it’s not in any sense a martini, but this being the season of alcoholic experimentation I decided to give it a try.  It requires two parts sherry to one part vermouth, with a dash of bitters.  It looked like this.

 

Adonis photos by Caroline Gannon

And damn, it was really good, really very surprisingly good.

         It’s no substitute for a martini of course, but that’s because nothing is.