How To Mix A Martini Like Winston Churchill

A crisp martini rests comfortably in the pantheon of classic cocktails. While determining who exactly invented the drink is a bit of a mystery, some variation of the martini has been around since 1750s France. No less of a legend than Winston Churchill was noted as a martini enthusiast — well, sort of. Churchill's typical martini order wasn't a martini at all, given his apparent disdain for one of the key ingredients.

Winston Churchill is remembered as the architect of the Allies' victory during WWII, as being Prime Minister of the UK twice — and as a man who knew his way around a bottle of alcohol. With copious drinking comes an ironclad set of preferences in what to drink, and Churchill was outspoken about his booze choices. When it came to martinis, he had one request: hold the vermouth. It's perhaps an apocryphal quote, but it's written that Churchill wryly noted about vermouth, "I would like to observe the vermouth from across the room while I drink my martini" (via Gentleman's Journal). As a basic martini just has two ingredients — gin and vermouth — this means Churchill's martini was really just gin served in a martini glass with ice.

Not just any gin would do. Churchill was a noted aficionado of Plymouth Gin, a brand founded back in 1793 and in existence to this day. Plymouth's own martini recipe calls for gin stirred with ice and dry vermouth.

Winston Churchill's martini order does not sound like the order of a man who enjoyed martinis. Why call it a martini at all, when it's just a glass of cold gin without vermouth? And if we're to take our cues from the Oscar-winning 2017 film Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman's Churchill is rarely seen without a glass of whiskey nearby. It could be that Churchill's martini recipe was simply making fun of both his political allies and adversaries.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had opposing martini tastes to Churchill's. His go-to martini recipe reversed the gin-to-vermouth ratio, and FDR was just as likely to garnish his cocktail with a lemon twist than with the traditional olive. Historian Richard Langworth trashes the famous Churchill vermouth quote as "pure fiction," and further notes, "He didn't really like martinis. He put up with FDR's in the White House because they were the President's ritual (far too much vermouth, too). But he was once observed dumping one into a flowerpot" (via Bevvy).

A possible theory for Churchill's apparent hatred of vermouth plays into vermouth being primarily a product of Italy, famously one of the U.K.'s WWII opponents. Indeed, some stories about the Churchill martini suggest that it be served with a bow in Italy's direction in lieu of including vermouth.

Given Winston Churchill's spartan martini order, it's easy to guess that he would turn up his nose at the bevy of martini options available to modern drinkers. After all, we've come a long way from just swapping the olive garnish for a cocktail onion, calling it a Gibson, and moving on. 

Perhaps the biggest martini influencer of all time isn't Churchill but author Ian Fleming, who put a vesper in James Bond's hand and forever uprooted the recipe with Bond's instructions that the drink be shaken instead of the traditional stirred (007 didn't utter those iconic words, "Shaken, not stirred," onscreen until 1964's "Goldfinger"). As the years went on, the sheer simplicity of gin plus vermouth gave way to the appletini trend of the late '90s, bringing vodka to the bar as an alternative to gin.

Endlessly customizable, the martini remains a hot property to this day, with both pornstar martinis and espresso martinis currently sharing a moment in the spotlight (this writer personally prefers a dirty martini or a vesper, but all martinis are welcome). But if maximalism isn't your thing, order a chilled glass of gin, bow towards Italy, and toast Winston Churchill.