Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards (26 page)

Dedicated martini drinkers have their own variations:

Should the vermouth be stirred in with the gin or dripped on top—or maybe just even wiped in the shaker? In extreme cases, like Winston Churchill’s, the recommendation is that a martini should consist of a cold glass of gin and a glance at a bottle of vermouth.

Churchill might disdain it (Hawkeye Pierce of TV’s
M*A*S*H
went even further, saying that his perfect martini consisted of six jiggers of gin and a salute to “the photo of the inventor of vermouth”). But joking aside, without vermouth, there’s no martini —just a tumbler of gin. (Straight gin was known in 19th-century England as “mother’s ruin.”)

Vermouth is a kind of fortified wine, and in its dry or unsweetened form is bitter, although not unpleasantly so. The Italian inventor of the liquor, Antonio Benedetto Carpano of Turin, named his concoction “vermouth” from the German
Wermut
, or “wormwood.” Some martini aficionados like to lightly coat ice cubes with vermouth, and then use them in a cocktail shaker with gin; still others have special misting canisters to allow a light, oily coating to sit on top of the gin’s surface.

The Churchillian extreme, along with Ogden Nash’s ode—“There is something about a Martini / I think that perhaps it’s the gin”—conveys the importance of this liquor in the creation of a martini. Gin is a neutral white spirit, usually made from wheat or rye, flavored with various “botanicals” (herbs and spices). Most gins contain several botanicals, but the most important is the berry that gives the spirit its name: juniper, or
genever
in Dutch. Juniper’s resin taste gives gin its distinctive kick.

Gin distillers use different methods to flavor their potions, from simple mixing to steeping to redistillation. For most of the 20th century, “London Dry” gin (made anywhere in the world) was most popular. But in recent decades, spicier or more floral blends—like Tanqueray Rangpur (limes, bay leaf, and ginger) and Hendricks (flavored with cucumber and rosewater)—have gained fans.

But regardless of where its ingredients are made, the martini is an American drink and an American symbol. Twentieth-century literary critic Bernard DeVoto said, “The martini is the supreme American gift to world culture.” Although martinis are most popular in the United States and the United Kingdom, they are now enjoyed worldwide. A humorous British book published in 2003 by Gustav Temple and Vic Darkwood was titled
Around the World in 80 Martinis
because, during the authors’ quick-and-dirty circumference of the globe, the martini was the only beverage they felt could always be relied on as safe and drinkable.

Almost everything about a good martini requires cold: cold gin, cold vermouth, cold glass, and an even colder shaker. Keep everything you can in the freezer. A warm martini has never been in vogue.

The essential chill is what led connoisseurs to call the classic martini “the silver bullet.” The fussiness around its preparation is in directly inverse proportion, of course, to the ingredients discussed above. It’s one icon that isn’t enshrined under glass—you can vary steps, ingredients, and methods to your liking.

The easiest and most common variation on the classic martini is known as the Gibson, and its recipe is exactly the same as its forebear’s, with one change—instead of an olive, a Gibson is garnished with a cocktail (or pearl) onion. There are several theories of how the Gibson got its garnish:

As is so often the case with classic food and drink recipes, no one knows which tale is true. But we do know that you can’t make a Gibson with a slice of Vidalia—you have to have good quality pickled cocktail onions to put in your drink. You never know when you might wind up savoring that garnish. After all, who could forget Bette Davis in
All About Eve
, pickled on Gibsons, chomping down on her onion before uttering the line, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”

“I never go jogging. It makes me spill my martini.”

“Martinis should always be stirred, not shaken, so that the molecules lie sensuously one on top of the other.”

“Shaken, not stirred.”

“I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.”

“The only American invention as perfect as a sonnet.”

The Little Black Dress

Jane Austen wrote, “A woman can never be too fine when she is all in white.” That was then—this is now. These days, black is always in fashion, but the best black to have is the LBD, or the “little black dress.” Fashionistas have long repeated the mantra that with one LBD in your closet, you can conquer any sartorial situation, from boardroom to ballroom. OK . . . you might need two—one short, one long. But you get the picture.

Once upon a time, black was the color of mourning and considered far too drab for fashionable ladies. Black was historically (and superstitiously) used to make its wearers inconspicuous so that death would not claim them, too.

Tradition dictated that the length of mourning depended on the person’s relationship to the deceased: a woman mourning her husband was required to grieve for at least a year. There were also strict rules about proper mourning attire, codified into three stages:

Stage 1:
Dull black clothing, no accessories; women of good standing also typically wore a veil. (Lower-class women usually couldn’t afford a veil.)

Stage 2:
Still plain black clothing, but women could add some ornamentation—modest jewelry or black trim on their clothes.

Stage 3:
Gradually, women could introduce accessories and clothing of other colors until they came out of mourning completely.

Because mourning clothes were needed quickly, they were among the first off-the-rack clothing offered by merchants. The poor made their own by dying regular clothes black.

It took a Frenchwoman to awaken the fashion world from its dreary slumber. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was born in 1883 to a poor family in Saumur, France, but over the years, she learned millinery and tailoring—and a bit about life. Thanks to a lot of hard work (and affairs with a couple of rich playboys), Chanel was able to open “Chanel Modes,” her first dress shop, in the northwestern French town of Deauville in 1909.

Chanel’s philosophy was “simplicity is elegance.” Her most celebrated signature piece was the Chanel suit, introduced in 1923 and consisting of a knee-length skirt and a chic boxy jacket with gold buttons. The suits are still in style today.

But although the suit made Chanel’s name famous, the Little Black Dress ensured her legacy. Chanel’s devotion to keeping things simple extended to color. Why shouldn’t practical black, which is versatile and doesn’t show dirt, become a fashion ideal? Her first LBD, introduced in 1926, was a long-sleeved sheath with a slash neck and a hem cut just above the knee.

Chanel wanted a dress that could act as a sort of canvas or backdrop for a woman’s personal style. Depending on what a woman wore with it, the LBD could work for day (boucle jacket, pearl earrings) or evening (diamond necklace, silk shawl).

Chanel was responsible for two other important ideas that revolutionized fashion and the LBD:

The brilliant part? It worked—and beautifully. Soon, women were mad for the LBD, and even Chanel’s greatest rival, Elsa Schiaparelli, created a beautiful LBD. This was shocking, since
that designer’s signature color was the equally shocking “Schiaparelli Pink.”

During the Depression and World War II, the LBD continued to gain fans, especially since its shorter style meant less fabric and its many uses meant women needed fewer frocks. The booming 1950s economy meant full skirts and fabulous trims made their way into fashion, but the LBD still reigned supreme as the dress that could take women from lunch through cocktails and on to dinner.

The most iconic LBD appeared at the end of this era, when Audrey Hepburn’s character in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
, Holly Golightly, wore a sleeveless LBD with gigantic pearls and enormous sunglasses. Even during the late 1960s and early 1970s when the LBD declined somewhat in popularity due to the rise of Pucci and hemlines, the image of Golightly with her updo and white paper bag wearing that LBD remained a fashion icon.

The LBD’s fortunes rose again in the 1980s as women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers. Designers like Diane von Furstenberg, Norma Kamali, and Donna Karan realized that simple black dresses were ideal office attire.

The 1990s ushered in the golden age of the LBD, which can now, according to
Vogue
, fit into the following categories: day dress, date dress, dance dress, mourning dress, gothic dress, portrait dress, showstopper dress, and red carpet dress. And part of the fashion’s renewed success is due to the groundbreaking TV series
Sex and the City
. The lives, fates, and fashions of four Manhattan female singletons revolved around pink drinks and LBDs. If women can wear the LBD to an art gallery, to brunch, to babysit, and to go grocery shopping—like the characters on
Sex and the City
did—well, that’s what fashionistas call a “wardrobe builder.”

One of the most fascinating things about looking at galleries and collections of LBDs is that it can be nearly impossible to tell which ones are from today and which ones are from 1920. It seems Chanel was exactly right when she deemed that simplicity was elegant.

Dreadlocks

Sometimes they’re short, sometimes they’re long; sometimes they’re made from curly hair, sometimes from straight. No matter what they look like, though, hair in what’s come to be called “dreadlocks” is formed by encouraging sections of hair to “lock up” against themselves. The result is a distinct, natural-looking style made up of separated pieces that don’t need to be combed, untangled, braided, or elaborately styled.

There is no definitive origin for the term “dreadlocks.” One theory is that it comes from ancient religions that thought it was unholy to cut the hair and adherents lived in “dread” of the Lord. The term could also have derived from the idea that the wearer was either to be feared or that he looked dreadful. Regardless, the wearing of dreadlocks can be traced back much further than the Rastafarians of Jamaica—one of the best-known adopters of the hairdo.

Cultures have worn locked hair for centuries. Even Tutankhamen, the Boy King of Egypt, had images on the walls of his tomb of himself, his mother, and his wife wearing wigs styled like dreadlocks. The ancient Celts also wore dreadlocks (invading tribes described them as having “hair like snakes”), and the Bible describes Samson as having “seven locks on his head.” Hindus, Pacific Islanders, Islamic Dervishes, and Coptic Christian monks have all sported dreadlocks at one time or another.

By far, though, the greatest ambassador for “dreadies” was Rastafarian reggae master Bob Marley, famous for songs like “I Shot the Sheriff,” “One Love,” and “Jamming.” Marley’s long dreads usually hung free while he played concerts, and his soulful style appealed to many different people in the United States who wanted to emulate Marley’s look.