Roger Moore’s Recipe for a Perfect Dry Martini

Roger Moore, writing for The Guardian:

The sad fact is that I know exactly how to make a dry martini but I can’t drink them because, two years ago, I discovered I was diabetic. I prefer one with gin, but James Bond liked a vodka martini, “shaken not stirred” — which I never said, by the way. That was Sean Connery, remember him?

The worst martini I’ve ever had was in a club in New Zealand, where the barman poured juice from a bottle of olives into the vodka. That’s called a dirty martini and it is a dirty, filthy, rotten martini, and should not be drunk by anybody except condemned prisoners.

My dry martinis taste amazing and the day they tell me I’ve got 24 hours to live I am going to have six. Here’s how I make them.

Moore’s recipe should please you gin aficionados who always email me to complain when I link to Jim Coudal’s recipe. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend Moore’s recipe — you need significant stirring, and there’s no need to put the cocktail shaker in the freezer. But I found Moore’s affection for martinis, and the poignancy of his inability now to drink them, irresistible.

★ Sunday, 1 November 2015