How To Drink A Martini Like Ernest Hemingway

If there's one drink that's associated with writer Ernest Hemingway it's... the daiquiri because there's a variety that bears his name — also the absinthe-champagne cocktail called Death in the Afternoon since he's not only said to have created the recipe, but it shares the name of one of his novels. Still, Hemingway did drink martinis as well (along with just about anything with a little alcohol in it) and had some pretty specific ideas about how they should be prepared. Okay, not a James Bond level of specificity. He didn't require them to be made with both gin and vodka and shaken, not stirred. However, he did like his martinis on the dry side (quelle surprise).

Should you be entertaining Hemingway's ghost and want some booze to go with the boos, the Papa-sanctioned way to mix a martini begins with a frozen glass. Then, stir a teaspoon of vermouth and about an ounce-and-a half of gin (Gordon's was the author's favorite) over ice before straining the drink into the aforementioned glass and garnishing it with frozen cocktail onions. Why onions and not olives? And doesn't that technically make the drink a Gibson? It seems Hemingway was partial to aromatics. His favorite sandwich featured peanut butter and onions, and he added both garlic and onion to his hamburger recipe. (And yes, Hemingway was actually drinking Gibsons, but the word "martini" sounds manlier, so you probably shouldn't raise the issue with his revenant.)

"Write about what you know" is a quote famously attributed to everyone's high school ELA teacher, and Ernest Hemingway certainly took that to heart. Many of his characters shared his proclivity for boozing it up, and in his 1952 novel "Across the River and Into the Trees," he has his hero visit Harry's Bar in Venice (an establishment with which Hemingway was very familiar) and order "a very dry martini ... a double." To make sure the bartender would understand just how dry he needed his martini to be, he goes on to specify: "Montgomerys. Fifteen to one."

The Montgomery is a type of martini that's even dryer than Hemingway's favorite, which involves only nine parts of gin to one of vermouth. The name was inspired by British Army Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, a commander who's alleged to have preferred his troops to outnumber those of the opposing forces in the same ratio.