:thumbsup::thumbsup:
Personally if there isn't Gin in a Martini I do not consider it one, but I don't rant about it myself.
I do like my Gin ones shaken though, with about three olives
I used to be all in on the shaken martini (gin, naturally); it adds a bit of theatrics to the process of mixing a drink. Stirring? Boring. Loading up a Boston shaker, slamming a pint glass into it and casually shaking it over your shoulder? Great way to entertain your guests while you make them a refreshing cocktail. It's all so damn stylish, you know? And isn't that half the fun of making cocktails in the first place?
But I got to reading a lot of high-handed "mixologists" lamenting the shaken martini trend and figured I'd give the traditional stir a try. Shaking is fun, but when every single high-end bartender says you're doing it wrong? Well, maybe they know what they're talking about. So I picked up some fine ingredients, and did my part to make the diehard traditionalists proud. I tried different ratios, experimented with classic preparations, and managed to mix the best martini I've ever had in my life, full stop. My recipe:
2.5 oz Tanqueray Ten gin
0.5 oz Dolin dry vermouth
1 dash Regan's orange bitters
I combined the ingredients in a mixing (pint) glass, added 7 ice cubes, stirred at a brisk pace in a single direction for 45 seconds, strained into a chilled cocktail glass, twisted a small piece of lemon peel over the drink (to express the citrus oil), rubbed the garnish around the rim of the glass and dropped it into the drink. The resulting concoction was spectacularly smooth, much moreso than I've had from a shaken martini, as the stirring allows chilling and dilution without aerating the liquid, and the absence of small ice shards was noticeable. And beyond the smoothness, the interplay of the juniper and botanicals of the gin with the sweet herbaceous quality of the vermouth and the bitter citrus... It's just perfect. I highly recommend it.
Here's a video demonstrating the rather surprisingly noticeable difference between a shaken and stirred Manhattan (which is obviously not a martini, but has some similarities). The stirred drink is smooth and the shaken drink is frothy, despite being identical recipes. It's a fascinating phenomenon; I consider myself a stirring convert based on my own experimentation. I urge you to give it a try yourself.
Which is a fantastic diversion for a thread that started about tequila and margaritas, a drink that is legitimately meant to be shaken, not stirred. So to get slightly back on topic, OP, consider picking up some grapefruit soda (such as Squirt) with your tequila, and you can make
palomas, another fantastic tequila cocktail. A couple ounces of tequila over ice in a highball glass, fill with grapefruit soda, garnish with a lime wedge (which is commonly squeezed over the drink by the drinker). Highly refreshing and simple to make (moreso than a margarita).