Luis Buñuel’s Guide To The Perfect Dry Martini
(because it’s monday afternoon a.k.a. the part of the week during which i most urgently require some booze).
so with that in mind, this might not be the best film that Buñuel ever made, but it’s arguably the most important. here’s how the man himself explains his process in his memoir My Last Sigh:
“The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients — glasses, gin, and shaker — in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don’t take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Shake it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, shake it again, and serve.
The making of a dry martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin’s hymen ‘Like a ray of sunlight through a window — leaving it unbroken.’”
