AH, THE MYSTIQUE of a well-made martini. To hear connoisseurs tell it, you'd think it contained the clear-liquid keys to immortality, sexual prowess, and immeasurable wealth - in order of individual preference, no less. But don't you believe it. You want to know a martini's big secret? It's made entirely of alcohol, kids. You've got your distilled spirit (gin), you've got your fortified wine (vermouth). There's no juice, no syrup, no soda, no cream, no nothin' but booze. Of course a round or two makes you superhuman.
Wantin' me some of that delusional action, I decided to embark upon an all-alcohol crawl ("crawl" indeed being the operative word). I sought cocktails that, like martinis, contained only mixed liquors - not just the hard stuff but wines, liqueurs, and so on - but that, unlike martinis, weren't, um, martinis. I'd be the anti-Bond.
First stop: the eye-shaped bar at Avila (1 Charles Street South, Boston, 617.267.4810), which has gradually become one of my happy-hour go-tos for its goodly and affordable array of yummy little nibbles - just the thing for averting an untimely meltdown. Perusing the drink list, I was promptly swayed by the Poached Pear ($12): with a blend of Absolut Pears vodka, peppercorn-infused Belle de Brillet (a pear-flavored cognac), and Cockburn's 10-year tawny port coursing through my system, I'd soon be lightly poached myself - a fine state in which to contemplate a snack of duck eggs over-easy with asparagus and parmesan ($8).
As though he truly knew me, the bartender set down a glass so full I had to leave it on the bartop, bend over, and slurp the first couple of sips to cut down on spillage. Noting my anti-Bondian non-smooth moves, he excused himself: "I tend to overpour." Oh, no apologies necessary. For all its potency, the concoction went down easy: between the richness of the port and the distinct hint of pepper, it really did smack of the namesake dessert (though without added sugar, which might have rendered it cloying). Before I could pop my first salt-cod popper ($6) - funky little fritters, by the way, lightly crisped and served with a balsamic mayo to offset the pungent fish - I'd polished off the last sip.
A touch woozy but no less dogged, I wobbled on to Mistral (223 Columbus Avenue, Boston, 617.867.9300), hoping to soak up some juicy gossip along with my alcohol (having recently hit the eavesdropping jackpot at a North End bar where a lawyer was yelling into his cell, exasperated that his client had been nabbed for "firing a couple of shots into the CambridgeSide Galleria"). As it was a bit too early to catch the cougars pouncing on their power-brokering prey, however, I had to take my Lemon Fizz ($10) straight. Luckily, this is one for the lightweights, with plenty of limoncello and Champagne to cushion the blow of Ketel One Citroen - a sprightly garden-party sort of cocktail. I floated on out, ready for Round 3.
Hoping Mistral's sister would hit me with similarly soft gloves, I ventured over to Sorellina (1 Huntington Avenue, Boston, 617.412.4600). No such luck: the only all-alcohol cocktail on the drink list was a Vespa Martini ($10), which dared to pair Bombay Sapphire and Ketel One with only a bit of Lillet Blonde (a brandy-fortified aperitif wine) as a buffer. Adding a twist is like putting a satin bow on a pretty little girl possessed by the devil, I thought, as Tara, my rather gorgeous bartender, peeled an orange to do just that. But even the slightest mist of citrus oil showed up nicely against the clear, clean slate of the spirits.
I asked Tara if the deceptively smooth sipper was her invention; she was explaining that she'd found it in a classic recipe guide when her coworker (and recent Liquid profilee) April Wachtel interrupted to ask whether the name shouldn't actually be "Vesper Martini." The black-clad pair debated the question just long enough to inspire undoubted reveries of hot girl-on-girl action in at least some of my fellow imbibers; as for me, it was high time (yes, in every sense) to bring this crawl to a halt. A wacky beertini at Bar 10 (Westin Copley Place, 10 Huntington Avenue, 617.424.7446) would let me do it little by little.
While beertinis ($13) will never be everyone's cups of cold tea, they're nothing if not intriguing. Take the Strawberry Blonde. The combination of Stoli Strasberi and Stella Artois is refreshingly light, the former mostly acting to perfume the latter. The effect was subtle enough, in fact, that I had to drain the entire shaker, which the server had left on my table (sheesh, am I so easy to peg?), to be sure I'd caught it. I suspected the Irish Beertini, a mix of Stoli Vanil and Guinness, might have made a more apt nightcap, but then, what I needed was a thinking cap - I had an etymological mystery to solve.
Arriving home, I looked up the term "Vespa Martini." While it does exist, the likelihood is that it's simply a derivative of the Vesper - which turns out to have been an invention of Ian Fleming himself, ordered by 007 in Casino Royale in honor of femme fatale Vesper Lynd. Guess I'm a Bond girl, after all. @
