Originally Posted by
Martinis at 8
And for you "traditionalists" on the gin thing. Gin started being mixed in martinis in the 60's. Before that it was mostly potato vodka that was being used. That being said, however, I use vodka and gin, and in some cases will mix both in a single martini.
M8
Trained in the late 50s while in college as a barman, the best of part time jobs (and tips split with the cocktail waitresses), I will categorically disagree with your claim.
Every bartenders manual and recipe book from days gone by, the hoary, hairy past, will without hesitation call for gin in a Martini. By the late 50s, occasional customers might call for a Vodka Martini - but since only a handful of big city bars might even stock "potato vodka" (for under nortmal conditions, US importers would not have touched an Eastern European/Soviet product), and US and West European vodkas were all grain-based alky.
Vodka martinis leaped in popularity in the early 60s, as much to do with Ian Fleming as anyone (just as vodka itself became "respectable", after for years being only the emphasis in a Bloody Mary or Screwdriver, the only "popular" vodka based bar beverages.