Gin, stirred
Fifty-Fifty
Barline 1h,1h,d,cO
The code is the shorthand off my printed menu; the Key tab decodes every letter.
- 1 1/2 oz Gin
- 1 1/2 oz Dry vermouth
- 1 dash Orange bitters
Stir with ice until cold, then strain.
Coupe, olive.
Taste
An ounce and a half each of gin and dry vermouth, one dash of orange bitters. Half the drink is wine, so it is softer and lower proof than the Martini and the vermouth's grape and wormwood share the front with the juniper. Stirred, coupe, an olive. Salt from the olive against the wine.
History
Equal parts was the Martini ratio before Prohibition. Hugo Ensslin prints the Fifty-Fifty in 1917 in Recipes for Mixed Drinks, and Harry Craddock repeats it in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book: half gin, half French vermouth. The dry decades pushed the vermouth down to a rinse, and the ratio came back in New York in the late 1990s, at Sasha Petraske's Milk & Honey and then as Audrey Saunders' Fitty-Fitty at the Pegu Club in 2005, with orange bitters. This menu pours an ounce and a half each of gin and dry vermouth and one dash of orange bitters, stirred, coupe, olive.
Same shape, other bottles
The Martini family, with the bottle that changed.
- Affinityscotch for gin
- Metropolecognac for gin
- Olivettewith elderflower liqueur
- Ford Cocktailwith Bénédictine
- Martinezwith sweet vermouth and maraschino liqueur
- Journalistwith sweet vermouth and lemon juice
This is one drink on my home bar's menu. Tick the bottles you own and the menu lists which of all 185 drinks they pour.