If you heard someone request a Martini on the rocks, you might infer from the order alone that they were north of 60—old enough to recall that it was Frank Sinatra’s preferred way of taking the classic cocktail. In fact, for many people who came of age in the post-WWII era, a Martini on the rocks was simply de rigueur. In 1961, The New York Times even noted the evolving trend: “As for Martinis, the two most significant recent developments are the trends to the vodka Martini and to the Martini on the rocks.”
In the intervening years, as tastes changed and the modern cocktail revival fought to restore propriety to the realm of mixed drinks, the notion of a Martini served in anything other than a stemmed glass became sacrilegious. During these years, too, the Martini became much more than a drink with a set recipe—it became an idea, a metonym for sophistication, opulence, purity. To take such a symbolically loaded cocktail and throw it over a few ice cubes would dilute the image of the drink as much as the drink itself.
Against this backdrop, in 2017, we posed the question: Can the Martini on the rocks make a comeback? Back then, the question was almost rhetorical. Seven years on, I’m happy to report that the Martini on the rocks has made small, but significant inroads into the mainstream. Within the last year, Bar Bludorn in Houston, Four Walls in Nashville and Stokes Adobe in Monterey, California, to name a few, have all served some version of a Martini over a large rock. It may never dethrone the Martini in a V-shaped glass, but to enjoy the same ice-cold classic we know and love in a format that’s a little softer around the edges—that’s its own kind of opulence.
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