The Martinez: The Drink That Became the Martini, Poured Right on West Sahara

LAS VEGAS — Before the martini had a name, there was the Martinez: gin, sweet vermouth, a whisper of maraschino, bitters — stirred ice-cold and served up. It was already an old drink by Prohibition, and it remains one of the finest things a bartender can pour. In Las Vegas, one of the best places to drink it right is a candlelit steakhouse on West Sahara that files its cocktail menu like a history book: the Martinez, under the Gothic Age.

It is the evolutionary missing link: take a Manhattan’s bones (spirit plus sweet vermouth), swap the whiskey for gin, add a touch of maraschino — then drop the maraschino, flip to dry vermouth, push the gin ratio up, and the Martini falls out. The Martinez is where all of that happened, one stir at a time.

The 140-year-old argumentNobody knows who invented it

The origin is a 140-year-old bar-room argument: Jerry Thomas — the “father of American mixology” — claimed to have invented it at San Francisco’s Occidental Hotel; the city of Martinez, California, credits local bartender Richelieu, supposedly mixing one for a gold-country miner. Neither is provable; the era’s records are thin.

What survives in print is enough. O.H. Byron’s 1884 Modern Bartender’s Guide lists a Martinez as “Same as Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky.” Three years later, Thomas’s posthumously published Bar-Tender’s Guide prints the full recipe: a pony of Old Tom gin, a glass of vermouth, two dashes of maraschino, a dash of Boker’s bitters, lemon garnish. Recognizably the drink we still make — the template was locked in before the 20th century started.

The specHow to build one

The 1880s bartenders never agreed on a ratio, and modern ones still argue — but the working consensus is clean and simple:

1½ oz Old Tom gin
1½ oz sweet vermouth
¼ oz maraschino liqueur
2 dashes bitters (Angostura or orange)

Combine in a mixing glass with plenty of ice, stir about 20 seconds until well-chilled and properly diluted, then strain into a chilled coupe — a Nick & Nora glass works beautifully. Cut a wide swath of lemon or orange peel, express the oils over the surface of the drink, and drop it in.

Technique notesWhy stirring is the whole game

Stir, never shake. There is no juice or cream in this glass that needs aeration — shaking beats air into it and melts the ice too fast, turning silk into slush. Twenty slow seconds chills it and folds in the right amount of water.

Ice is an ingredient: big, fresh, cold cubes. The wet, half-melted stuff in a bar well is how a good Martinez dies before it reaches the table.

Treat the vermouth like wine, because it is wine. Once opened it starts dying — refrigerate it. A bottle that has sat on the shelf since summer will taste flat and tired, and that flatness lands right in the glass.

Maraschino discipline: a quarter ounce, no more. It is beautiful and funky at restraint levels, cough syrup past them. And the gin matters — Old Tom is the slightly sweeter, rounder 19th-century style the drink was built on. London Dry works, but it makes the drink leaner.

Common mistakes, ranked: shaking it; swapping in dry vermouth (that is a different drink); dead vermouth from an open bottle; skipping the citrus expression, which is where the aromatics live.

Where to drink itWest Sahara, under the Gothic Age

Want someone else to make you one? Herbs & Rye, 3713 W Sahara Ave. The off-Strip steakhouse organizes its enormous classic-cocktail menu by historical era, and the Martinez lives in the Gothic Age section — The Infatuation’s review specifically name-checks “a martinez from the Gothic Age.” That tells you how seriously the room takes the classics.

The credentials hold up: No. 25 on North America’s 50 Best Bars 2024, cocktails averaging around $10 — rare air for this caliber of bar program. Open Monday through Saturday, 5 pm to 3 am; the move is a bar seat, where you can watch it get stirred the way it is supposed to be. Reservations: (702) 982-8036.

Or make it at home: the spec above, a chilled glass, fresh vermouth, and twenty honest seconds with a bar spoon. One hundred and forty years of bartenders have argued about everything else. Nobody argues about the stir.