I think, without blowing clouds of smoke up my own fundament, that I now make a better martini at home than I can get in most bars.
I should obviously qualify that. The home martini is now highly controlled, massively repeatable and evolved to fit my personal taste. Most bars can’t get it that good. To be fair, most bars want to add personalised ‘twists’ that diverge from my own ideas of perfection.
But drinking a martini in some places is better than home, because of the ritual and the mise-en-scene. When Alessandro wheels his little trolley over in Dukes, you’re getting something you can’t recreate at home.
There’s a lot in the surroundings but I’m starting to think that the distinctive feature in a truly great bar is what we might call ‘the presentation’. When Alessandro puts the drink on your table there’s a tiny metaphorical fanfare. When the crew at Three Sheets slide one across the bar, there’s a smile that plays across their lips ... a tremendous satisfaction with a job well done.
I’ve seen clips online of Japanese barmen, thrusting the drink across the bar with a kind of Samurai flourish and a bow of the head.
And my problem is that, try as I might, no matter how good the cocktail... I can’t do this. The physics is wrong. I can’t ‘present’ the drink to myself and so I’m short the final gesture that makes the cocktail perfect.
OK. I understand that this is where things get weird.
My first experiment was, in all seriousness, to take my first sip of a textbook martini while staring intently at Manet’s Un bar aux Folies Bergère. I’ve always loved the painting but the barmaid’s evident ennui was off putting. Also, I don’t own a top hat so the whole reflection gimmick was a washout.
Then ... and I can’t really believe I’m admitting this ... I built a set. I had time on my hands and I’ve got a great collection of small surfaces for tabletop photography, so I rigged up a short length of mahogany bar and a mirror. (I build my sets on top of a ‘Lazy Susan’ bearing so I can rotate them to adjust the daylight)
So yes. It was weird. My family laughed at me as I slid my perfect martini across the bar to a reflection of myself ... then, spun it, took it off myself and thanked me.
But visually, emotionally, it was starting to work.
I don’t know. I take pictures of my drinks after I’ve mixed them, so I get that moment of pure contemplation. But I do wonder whether it’s something we need to add to our home bar rigs. Imagine. A piece of mahogany, marble, or zinc. It doesn’t need to be huge, it just needs to semiotically scream ‘Bartop’. And then a mirror behind it. Not for a reflection of yourself but because of that weird effect mirrors have of emphatically closing off one dimension by turning you back on yourself. There is nowhere to go.
Y’know ... I’m almost serious about this. A small piece of furniture where you can set your finished drink to admire it for a couple of seconds before drinking, is a boon to humanity and a benefit to drinkers everywhere.