In a metropolis known for its fast pace, where tastes are ever-changing and trends flicker out overnight, one thing remains fixed: New Yorkers can’t get enough Martinis. Since the classic cocktail’s resurgence commenced over five years ago, winning over a new generation of drinkers with its sophistication and restraint, its popularity has yet to wane. During the height of the mania, Bemelmans was slinging around 1,000 Martinis each service; today, the stately Upper East Side bar still dispatches 800 to 900 on a typical weekend night. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, The Long Island Bar remains “little other than a Martini-purveying machine,” co-owner Toby Cecchini recently told Punch.
To better understand how New Yorkers today are ordering the drink du jour in the wild, we asked bar teams at more than a dozen classic and new-school institutions across the city to track Martini sales on a given weekend night, keeping tabs on customers’ choice of spirit, garnish and eccentric tendencies.
If there’s one main takeaway, it’s that the dirty Martini continues to reign supreme. (Interestingly, drinkers seem to be split relatively evenly between vodka and gin.) At Le Dive, a bustling Dimes Square establishment popular among the under-30 crowd, “someone drank two extra-dirty vodka Martinis with one olive before moving onto two filthy vodka Martinis with three olives each,” the team reports. During one Saturday night service at Hawksmoor, every single classic Martini was served dirty. Not all drinkers at New York establishments are gravitating toward the briny stalwart, though. The espresso-spiked iteration continues to be a favorite among the evening crowd (though many bartenders hesitate to classify it as a Martini), while upstanding historic renditions like Vespers and Gibsons seem to be on the rise.
Amid the more respectable orders were some untraditional—and in some cases, unhinged—ones. A persistent faction is still trying to make tequila Martinis happen, for example, while others are calling for truly off-the-rails riffs. At Tigre, the opulent cocktail den on the Lower East Side, the bar team has received orders for a nonalcoholic filthy vodka Martini and even a 50/50 Martini split between olive brine and Old Raj gin, with a splash of Campari; most recently, one daring customer asked the team to stir a self-provided electrolyte packet into the bar’s signature Perfect Martini. (The lead bartender politely declined, but offered the guest a straw.)
Perhaps the most deranged trend is the way people are deploying the Martini name itself. “‘Passion fruit Martini’ or ‘chocolate Martini,’” offers Temple Bar head bartender Samantha Casuga. “The word ‘Martini’ gets thrown around so haphazardly at times, so sometimes a guest isn’t quite clear about what they are ordering.” It’s like we’re in the early-2000s ’tini craze all over again. But at least this time, graham cracker crumb rims and sour apple schnapps aren’t part of the revival.
Between the Martini’s go-to base spirits, gin has a slight edge over vodka (53 percent to 47 percent). Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests a rise in nontraditional base spirits for the classic, like mezcal and tequila, which were called for at Lobby Bar, Temple Bar, The Nines, and Bemelmans. The latter bar also noted an uptick in Scotch Martinis.
The dirty Martini continues to reign supreme across New York City. Several of the surveyed bars, including Gage & Tollner, Hawksmoor and Temple Bar, have dirty Martinis on the menu. Those that don’t—and even some that do—see requests come in for the drink with varying levels of brine, ranging from slightly dirty to filthy, and, confusingly, “little extra dirty.” “Ah, yes,” says Temple Bar’s Samantha Casuga—“little extra.”
Each of the surveyed bars features at least one Martini on the menu. Some of these offerings, like Gage & Tollner’s menu of seven classic Martinis—from Dirty to Turf—keep it traditional. Other times, the menu Martini is a twist on the familiar, like at The Long Island Bar, where the house Martini consists of two types of gin, blanc vermouth, sake and a rare citrus tincture, or Le Rock’s Au Poivre, a spin on the dirty vodka Martini.
“Half olive brine, half Old Raj gin, with a splash of Campari”
“Filthy vodka Martini mocktail”
“Tequila reposado Martini with an olive”
“Raspberry Martini” (The bar made a Clover Club without egg white.)
