A while ago, when I was visiting my parents, my mother recreated a potent and delicious cocktail often made by Kathleen, her mother-in-law, often enough anyway not to require being written down.
My parents remember it as gin, dry vermouth, and sweet vermouth, in proportions of 3:2:1 with a dash of lime juice cordial.
In the late nineteenth century a martini was made with equal proportions of gin and vermouth, for example an 1888 Johnson’s Bartenders’ Manual listed a recipe for a “Martini Cocktail” that consisted in part of half a wine glass of Old Tom gin and a half a wine glass of vermouth. By the 1920s this had become two parts gin to one part vermouth. Kathleen’s cocktail was made in the earlier proportions. Today the less vermouth, the drier the Martini.
A so-called “Perfect” cocktail is a drink that includes equal parts of sweet and dry vermouth, so a Perfect Martini is a variant of the classic Martini which adds sweet vermouth to the original cocktail’s gin and dry vermouth.
Kathleen’s cocktail was similar, with a slight variation on the proportions of the sweet and dry vermouths.
Delicious, and good for you, too.
Drink up! 😉.
Related post
Wikitree: Kathleen (Cudmore) Symes (1908 – 2013)
Anne's Family History 