The Great Esquire Martini Contest of 2002
Back When Nobody Cared About Gin Martinis, a Group of Cocktail Experts Set Out to Find the Best One in NYC; Plus, More Gin Reviews!
As if “Gin Week” wasn’t keeping us busy enough over here at The Mix, we received an unexpected piece of good news yesterday. The Mix With Robert Simonson has been nominated for an IACP Award for Beverage-Focused Column!
We’re very grateful and proud as punch. The Mix has been a labor of love, but it is labor. (Gin Week is seriously kicking our butts, fyi!) And it’s gratifying to see all the hard work of the last two-and-a-half years recognized in such a lovely and public way. Thank you, IACP! And heartfelt thanks to our devoted readers. We’d be nowhere without you.
So, now that The Mix is an “award-nominated newsletter,” don’t you think it’s an ideal time to become a paid subscriber and see what all the fuss it out? Well, you’re in luck! Because we’ve got a sale going on:
Here at The Mix, we are grateful to have a large group of subscribers—and quite a few new free subscribers who have all joined within the last few weeks.
We appreciate all of you and hope that this week you really enjoy the Gin articles, interviews, recipes and round-ups we have in store.
During Gin week, if you decide to become an annual member, we are offering 20% OFF if you click on the link below. The secret password is GIN.
Thanks from The Mix!
And, now, without further ado:
The Great Esquire Martini Contest of 2002
Back in 2002, before the gin revival got underway, and long before the current Martini craze began, David Wondrich, then spirits and cocktail columnist for Esquire magazine, decided to hold a cocktail competition in service of the proper gin Martini.
On Tuesday, Nov. 19, he gathered together in one bar three judges who knew a good, old-school Martini when they tasted one, and a half-dozen bartenders who knew how to make one.
“The idea was to make it an invitational, like golf,” said Wondrich.
Those who were deemed fit to compete, and accepted the invite, included Sasha Petraske, owner of the modern speakeasy Milk & Honey, then just under three years old; Del Pedro, who was practicing classic mixology at Grange Hall; Albert Trummer, an Austrian who was just then making a splash with his drinks at Town restaurant; Shin Ikeda, bartender at the city’s first-ever Japanese-style cocktail bar, Angel’s Share; and Jason Woodruff, a bartender at Joe Allen’s in the Theater District.