Where they garnish Manhattans and Old Fashioneds with an olive

[2airishuman]

I have my boat on the hard in a rural location along Lake Michigan. We're here making the final preparations for winter.

I realize that there are places where it is thought to be normal to make a Manhattan Cocktail with brandy. I realize that there are places where club soda is thought to be a customary ingredient in an Old Fashioned. And I realize that reasonable people can disagree on matters such as orange garnish vs. cherry garnish and bourbon vs. rye, and proper ratios, in these traditional drinks.

But never before has someone brought me an Old Fashioned garnished with an olive. And told me that "that's how we do it here" when politely informed that it is not customary.

Putting an olive in a Manhattan is the sort of departure from societal norms that requires an extra layer of prior consent. Like handcuffs during sex or something. You can't just assume it's OK.

I'm taking it as a harbinger of the upcoming rapture. These are the End Times (tm).

 

[El Borracho]

Indeed a sad state of affairs. Admitted those bumpkins to the Union 185 years ago but they never took a fancy to civilization. One might think they would have enough respect to change the name when they change the cocktail. Neither the East nor the West. Not Southern nor Canadian. You are nowhere. Order imported beer.

 

[socalrider]

I am offended when served a martini with an olive garnish sunk into the beverage, creating an oil slick on the surface.

A proper martini should be garnished with a lemon twist. It should contain a substantial amount of vermouth (2:1), and a dash of orange bitters. I do not understand people who insist on paying a bartender to serve them chilled gin. Olives, which I personally find delicious, may be served on the side if desired.

Placing an olive in a drink containing bourbon is simply unacceptable. A crime against humanity. These people should be reported. I can only hope that this location is somewhere in Canada and not within of the United States. We have enough trouble here already.

 

[toddster]

Last week, I bought an expensive bottle of VSOP Cognac. (Gotta buy things that fit into the holes in the boat’s liquor cabinet.) Sad to say, my plebeian tastes could not expand to enjoy it. Indeed, the distillers web page suggested making manhattans from it.
… which would involve buying yet more stuff that I probably won’t enjoy.

But as my family “fortunes” involved growing big fat Royal Anne cherries for making maraschinos, I cannot recommend ever dunking an olive. (Sadly, nowadays, most maraschinos are made from skinny tasteless discarded Bings, for which the growers do not get paid, after a really nasty chemical bleaching process. The world continues to deteriorate.)

 

[Mid]

It should contain a substantial amount of vermouth

long as the vermouth is within the same postcode we're good to go .

 

[Mid]

VSOP Cognac.

define expensive ?

 

[FD Sea Dog]

It's True, I have had my early years Stationed-in-Life in St. Joseph Michigan (Stevensville Mi.), and my favorite Restaurant-Bar Tosi's of which I have known the Founder (Emil & Momma Tosi), then the Berghoff's (Herman & Jan - bought it) has now convoluted the Martini with the Olive!

This is a complete outrage (Emil would be rolling in his grave). The very thought that this once fine establishment has reduced it Martini standards to that of Stevensville's 'The Welcome Inn', where the County Snow Plow Drivers line up at 5am in the morning to pound 'Boiler-Makers' before they go on their Routes - This just can not stand !

I would take a Gin Gimlet enema before I swallow an Olive polluted Martini.
Even the 'New York Minute' would be preferable to the Olive invaded swill.
New York Minute

Alas the Watering Holes of the New Millennium have led to the eutrophication of the Olive infused Martini, clouding the mind altering hypoxia that only a true pure Martini can provide.

Donald is right, Our orange-haired political Bartender says: Drain the Swamp.
Indeed ... Dump the Olives!

 

[Mid]

Dump the Olives!

we can work with that ...

 

[kinardly]

S

I am offended when served a martini with an olive garnish sunk into the beverage, creating an oil slick on the surface.

A proper martini should be garnished with a lemon twist. It should contain a substantial amount of vermouth (2:1), and a dash of orange bitters. I do not understand people who insist on paying a bartender to serve them chilled gin. Olives, which I personally find delicious, may be served on the side if desired.

Placing an olive in a drink containing bourbon is simply unacceptable. A crime against humanity. These people should be reported. I can only hope that this location is somewhere in Canada and not within of the United States. We have enough trouble here already.

So where in ‘Dago can one sample an acceptable martini? I only ask because I’ve never personally experienced one I liked, and I actually like gin straight up.

 

[Jud - s/v Sputnik]

Placing an olive in a drink containing bourbon is simply unacceptable. A crime against humanity. These people should be reported. I can only hope that this location is somewhere in Canada and not within of the United States. We have enough trouble here already.

I can think of no better explanation of this phenomenon than the work of the late great Stanford/Harvard University sociologist/political scientist, Seymour Martin Lipset’s classic examination of the socio-political differences between the United States and Canada, Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the Unuted States and Canada.

The story is worth repeating, even if it is well known, since many residents of the gargantuan United States are rather, shall we say, ignorant, of the even more gargantuan (by size, but considerably smaller economically and by population) neighbour to their north (where words like colour and neighbour appear magically on a phone screen spelled, correctly, with a “u” in them, the iPhone or whatever not having vainly tried to auto-UNcorrect the word. This is Canada, that is America.).

What has any of this to do with olives, let alone cocktails with olives in them? Sit tight. I’m getting there.

Lo, young Seymour Martin Lipset, a fresh graduate student in 1945. Yes, the story of how the Olive came to reside —improbably!— in a bourbon-based drink, as outlined by our distinguished colleague OP above— is a long one, and worth telling. The key point here is that the Olive has only come to reside in American bourbon drinks, and not Canadian ones - and there are important, deep-seated reason for this.

The Saskatchewan Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Raise your hand if you’ve heard of this. Yes, the predecessor to the current day perennial dark horse party in Canadian politics, the left of centre (again, note the Canadian spelling) New Democratic Party, the NDP. The Saskatchewan cooperative was a Canadian prairies socialist movement that eventually evolved into the NDP, and was, famously if esoterically, studied by young and curious recent-PhD-dissertation-in-hand Lipset in 1945. “What explains the fundamental sociological and political differences between these neighbouring societies”, he wondered. Why, in this context, are those in Saskatchewan, Canada so different —and to the left of centre (get the spelling right!)— in their views and core beliefs than those in neighbouring North Dakota, “U.S. of goddamn A. and proud of it, get used to it!”? Little did young Dr. Lipset then dream that olives and Old Fashions would form part of his acclaimed study in comparative politics and sociology.

Lipset’s book, born of a doctoral dissertation examining the two nations and societies via a case study about the left-leaning Saskatchewan Cooperative Commonwealth Federation’s evolution in the left-of-centre NDP party —an almost unthinkable scenario in the U.S.—argued that our cultural distinctions stem from a basic difference in original organizing principles: the counterrevolutionary Canadian United Empire Loyalists vs. American revolutionaries. To quote one review of this classic study in comparative sociology and politics, “The differences between Canada and the United States are based, Lipset argues, on the differences between their respective founders during the American revolution. Those colonies that chose not to rebel became havens for fleeing loyalists and today are a country that remains devoted to Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada. The war for independence indelibly marked American character as rebellious and Canadian character as counter-revolutionary. Despite the passage of two centuries and the comings and goings of millions of migrants, the two nations still follow some of their founders’ patterns of politics.”

Is it not obvious by now the originator of the radical idea of putting an olive in a bourbon drink simply cannot have been Canadian? The evidence is weighty, again drawing on the review cited above, across a realm of cross-cultural, cross-border Canadian-American themes - from national identity myths and religion, to literary themes and law. In short, the radical olive in bourbon idea can only have originated in the country that brought us the nadir of modern industrial mass “cuisine”, the Big Mac (which little bro’ back in 1940, it’s birth year, could never have dreamed that it would spawn the even more hideous, lard-dripping offspring, Heart Attack Grill, in Sin City, Las Vegas.)

National identity creation: Canada, law-abiding and conservative; America revolutionary and destabilizing. The United States was organized around the populist ideology expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Even today, to become American is an ideological—Lipset even calls it a religious act … Americanism involves patriotism, religiosity, populism, anti-elitism, and a belief in meritocracy. Canadian national identity, on the other hand, offers only one ideological certainty: that Canadians are not Americans. We do not place olives in bourbon or other sweet drinks and never have! Tradition.

Literary comparison: how do our respective societies look at authority and power, and how might this bear on the Olive Question? The heroes and heroines of Canadian novels are not rebels and revolutionaries, but self-deprecating survivors. Lipset quotes Margaret Atwood’s statement that such heroes “survive, but just barely. They are born losers failing to do anything but keep alive.” In the same vein, critics suggest that American writers are to Canadian ones as powerful males are to passive, well-mannered females. American — but not Canadian — writers represent an “adversary culture,” boldly criticizing their own country’s institutions. Can one think of a cultural mindset more apt to pollute a bourbon drink with an olive?

Religious differences: Lipset attributes some of the differences between the two nations to religious factors, recalling that in 1775 Edmund Burke depicted the revolutionary Americans as the Protestants of Protestantism, the dissenters of dissent, the individualists par excellence. Even today, far more Americans than Canadians belong to sects — the groups to which Weber attributed the spirit of capitalism — instead of established churches. (Fully 87 percent of Canadians belong to three mainline denominations: Catholic, Anglican, and the United Church, a liberal, ecumenical Protestant church.) Churches in Canada are hierarchical and tend to support the state, unlike the Protestant sects of the United States, which reinforce egalitarianism and democratic individualism. For all we know, American Sunday preachers and the newfangled crazy ‘prophets’ of this age are heralding a coming New Age, a Rapture, where olives will soak in Old Fashions and Manhattans —and perhaps in even more drinks!

Finally, law. Lipset also finds marked differences between the two countries in regard to law. Crime rates, particularly violent crimes, are much higher in the United States than in Canada, which, as novelist Margaret Atwood notes, “must be the only country in the world where a policeman [the Mountie] is used as a national symbol.”

Such contrasts were prefigured in frontier days, when the American gunslinging settler “won the West”, but the Mounties kept the peace in Canada. Today the U.S. legal svstem emphasizes due process and the protection of individual rights against the states prosecutors, whereas the Canadian system is expected mainly to protect the community. Is there a law, buried deep in Magna Carta-based thick, Canadian legal tomes protecting the traditional sanctity of bourbon-based drinks from olives? Probably, but it’s lost in the mists of time: we accept it as an article of faith by now, not questioning: olives do not ever belong in Old Fashions or Manhattans!

Canadians are more favorably disposed than Americans toward the police — and also toward gun control: Only 3 percent of Canadians own a handgun, as compared to 24 percent of Americans. But let’s not talk of guns here, a topic bound to lead to violent disagreement and, quite possibly and ironically, the drawing of guns to settle the dispute by the Americans, as the Canadians look on aghast, olive-less Old Fashions and Manhattans in hand, politely sipping their nice drinks, wondering what all the fuss is about south of the border...

 

[socalrider]

S

So where in ‘Dago can one sample an acceptable martini? I only ask because I’ve never personally experienced one I liked, and I actually like gin straight up.

My house, any given Saturday. There's no magic though. 2oz of a decent Gin, which is sounds like you've probably got covered. 1oz of vermouth - I like French dry vermouths like Dolin, but most important is that they are fresh. Many people have a five year old bottle of vermouth in the back cabinet that they pour a few ounces out of every year. Better to buy a small bottle & keep refrigerated with a vacuum cork if you don't drink a lot of it. Then you just need a dash of Regan's orange bitters and a good lemon twist (I use a vegetable peeler).

Any good bartender should be able to make this for you, you just need to provide instruction. "Wet martini, dash of orange bitters, lemon twist, olives on the side" will probably work if you don't want to dictate proportions.

 

[fufkin]

It seems that Lipset missed the point entirely. Any astute cultural commentator would point to the obvious touchstone that exemplifies the true nature of the continental divide: Nipplegate.

A year prior, in 1993 we quietly and politely threw a raging bender called the SARS concert. Broadcast in all its glory, live, no censorship, by our national tax funded broadcaster.

Exhibit A

A year later, our neighbours to the south had this curious, rather prudish phenomenon that turned into Nipplegate.

Exhibit B

I guess us loyalists are a bit more free wheeling than one might think, at first glance.

For the record, a Manhattan was my Dad’s drink. His only specification was “CC or better”. That never made a bartender on either side of the border blink twice. On the other hand, try ordering a Caesar south of the border and see how blank a stare you get.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Olive in bourbon would not, I believe, happen in The South. We put Coke and a cherry, maybe branch water. And the cherry may have been pickled in Everclear (a specialty at a certain bar in Cenla.)

In rye, absinthe and orange rind will equal a Sazerac, if I recall

 

[socalrider]

Sazerac = lemon for me

 

[wick]

I am offended when served a martini with an olive garnish sunk into the beverage, creating an oil slick on the surface.

A proper martini should be garnished with a lemon twist. It should contain a substantial amount of vermouth (2:1), and a dash of orange bitters. I do not understand people who insist on paying a bartender to serve them chilled gin. Olives, which I personally find delicious, may be served on the side if desired.

Placing an olive in a drink containing bourbon is simply unacceptable. A crime against humanity. These people should be reported. I can only hope that this location is somewhere in Canada and not within of the United States. We have enough trouble here already.

Sorry to disappoint socal, Canuckistan cannot claim ownership of this Manhattan project debacle. It is as the state advertises, #puremichigan
I do like your recommendation of the orange bitters. Will try.

 

[socalrider]

Sorry to disappoint socal, Canuckistan cannot claim ownership of this Manhattan project debacle. It is as the state advertises, #puremichigan
I do like your recommendation of the orange bitters. Will try.

God help us... was it at least in the UP? We could cede that to Canada and nobody would notice.

 

[Jud - s/v Sputnik]

It seems that Lipset missed the point entirely. Any astute cultural commentator would point to the obvious touchstone that exemplifies the true nature of the continental divide: Nipplegate.

A year prior, in 1993 we quietly and politely threw a raging bender called the SARS concert. Broadcast in all its glory, live, no censorship, by our national tax funded broadcaster.

Exhibit A

View attachment 551231

A year later, our neighbours to the south had this curious, rather prudish phenomenon that turned into Nipplegate.

Exhibit B
View attachment 551232
I guess us loyalists are a bit more free wheeling than one might think, at first glance.

For the record, a Manhattan was my Dad’s drink. His only specification was “CC or better”. That never made a bartender on either side of the border blink twice. On the other hand, try ordering a Caesar south of the border and see how blank a stare you get.

You speak of tits and olives. I do see the connection.

And, indeed, some things do not translate well across the border. No self-respecting Canadian bartender would pollute a bourbon drink with an olive. And try ordering a double-double down there, if such is your coffee pleasure.

In any case, dear god, let us hope no one’s pleasure is a bourbon drink with an olive. (The nearest functional equivalent I can think of is a “Big Mac”, a shot of Jameson’s followed by a shot of pickle juice - this actually is a thing - allegedly tasting like a Big Mac.)

 

[Elegua]

Vermouth is useful on a cruising boat as it’s a good substitute, and in many cases a superior substitute, for white wine when cooking that doesn’t require refrigeration or oxidize after opening.

Try that risotto or pan sauce with vermouth next time.

 

[SloopJonB]

A proper martini should be garnished with a lemon twist. It should contain a substantial amount of vermouth (2:1), and a dash of orange bitters.

You sir are obviously a peasant.

A proper Martini is gin with an open bottle of vermouth waved gently above it and garnished with either an olive or a twist.

 

[Jim in Halifax]

is it time to bring up the shaken versus stirred question?