Summary

- Changes tradition
- Changes the content
- Changes the container
- Changes the base
- Changes nothing
- Changes something
- Changes people

Changes tradition
Even in the mixed drinking, like in top-level gastronomy, I like to talk about tradition. At a close look to consumption trends, in fact, we can notice that it exists a sort of "code of rules" that influences the creation of new recipes.
A cocktail's life is much longer when it is able to adapt itself to tastes' evolution and this vital force lies in the composition of its formula. At the origin of drinks' changes there are many factors: the shifting of the consumers' tastes; the marketing strategies of the production companies; the evolution of the techniques in producing the spirits themselves; the preparation techniques; the evolution of the glasses and of the technical tools.
At the beginning of mixology there was the need to render the spirits of the time more pleasant to the palate. They had a raw and "tough" taste because of the distillation processes that weren't able to divide the noble part of the product from the alcoholic and methylic remains, often toxic and always not pleasant, that were cause of serious damage to the health.
Today we can say that a cocktail is good because it is composed with ingredients that are already good, and that, mixed together in a certain way, create something even better; but we have to say that cocktails were born to make drinkable what maybe was not.

Changes the content
In mixed drinks' history, an ingredient that is always present is sugar. Today it is usually substituted by syrups and liqueurs that, in the last century, appeared on the market after a proliferation of producing companies.
The first written recipe of the Martini was called Martinez because it was dedicated to a traveller that had to reach the homonymous mining city. It dates back to 1862 and it is due to legendary barman Jerry "Professor" Thomas, who acted at Occidental Hotel's bar in San Francisco. This was its composition: gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino, orange bitter and a lemon twist.
The word "martini" in the mixed drinking appears for the first time in 1888 in Harry Johnson's bar handbook. In 1912 the recipe links its name to that of a Ligurian barman, coming from Arma di Taggia and emigrated to New York City, where he worked in the Knickerbocker Hotel's bar, and the recipe was the following: gin, dry vermouth and bitter orange.
In 1919, from the bar of the Walford Astoria Hotel, it starts the evolution of the Martini towards its dry taste, which presents itself in the classic composition: gin, dry vermouth, olive and/or lemon.
From this moment on it started the rise of a drink that will be a symbol of the 20th century and that will give its name to a glass on which the most renowned designers of the world will focus their creative nature. The preparation of this drink evolved from the "build" model, to the mixing glass till the shaker, and it never reached a precise identity.



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