I grew up as happy to get wasted on Baileys and Bloody Mary as bitter. But Martini may be on to something with its retro relaunch
"Oy darlin', I'll have two packets of cheese and onion crisps, a pack of salted peanuts and a pint of Martini Bitter."
Bacardi Martini has decided to make a macho land grab by reintroducing a steel toe-capped version of its famously feminine tipple.
This isn't the ice-cold shaken not stirred James Bond Martini, it's the fortified wine, often drunk with lemonade, and sold to sophisticated ladieeeeeez in the 1970s by Charlie's Angel Jaclyn Smith in a white silk trouser suit tied at the waist like a box of chocolates. "(Hello, I'm Jaclyn. Be a friend won't you? Get comfortable then you're ready for something you'll like … Try it.")
This was an age when real men drank real drinks (bitter because they were bitter, and mild if they had an identity crisis) and girls sipped at Cinzano, Babycham and Martini & Rossi of course. Amazingly, back in the day, booze was even more sexist than the world at large. Gender politics followed a simple rule – you were what you drank; any woman who ordered a pint was a dyke, any bloke who didn't was a poof, end of.
And now Martini is encouraging an ironic flowering of retro chic. Actually, its bitter isn't even bitter in the ale sense. It's simply an "explosion of flavours with gentle, bitter zesty lime and a touch of honey" that invites "everyone to rediscover the classic cocktails that its special recipe creates", according to those in the know. Martini bitter is aimed at men (particularly young'uns between the ages of 18 and 35).
As it happens, I was a reconstructed drinker from an early age. I had no truck with traditional divides. Between the ages of nine and 12 I was ill with encephalitis and the doctors didn't know how to fix it. My parents thought they did. Neither were really drinkers, but they got it in their head that alcohol was the answer. So in the corner of my bedroom they would leave a crate of bottled Guinness to be supped as and when it took my fancy. Perfectly appropriate you might think for a little boy in touch with his incipient manhood.
Yet in 1974 I proudly (if unwittingly) transcended the patriarchal hegemony of gender-specific quaffing, as my dad never said. Whenever my parents went out and left me in bed at home I insisted they brought me back a miniature bottle – so sure enough there was your testosterone-heavy Johnnie Walker and Bell's, but there was also Crème de Menthe, Advocaat, Cointreau, and the newly introduced Baileys. Girly drinks, boysy drinks, it made no odds to me.
It meant I grew up into a perfectly gender-neutral drinker, as happy to get wasted on Baileys and Bloody Mary as bitter; Crème de Menthe as Carlsberg (OK I'm lying about the crème de Menthe, there are limits). It's useful when you reach a certain age – there's only so many pints a fiftysomething can drink.
There is an exception, though. Even the most reconstructed of boozers will embrace their inner caveman in the right/wrong environment. On Tuesday night after football my friends go drinking. A dozen men drinking bitter or lager without exception. A dozen men who love their wine never touching a glass post footy. Cocktails, a nice refreshing rose, vodka and bitter lemon? You've got to be joking. If we really want to push the boat out we'll have a whisky, but of course we'll call it Scotch and have it without ice. Painful though it is to admit, I think the team behind Martini Bitter might have seen us coming. Reported by guardian.co.uk 8 hours ago.
"Oy darlin', I'll have two packets of cheese and onion crisps, a pack of salted peanuts and a pint of Martini Bitter."
Bacardi Martini has decided to make a macho land grab by reintroducing a steel toe-capped version of its famously feminine tipple.
This isn't the ice-cold shaken not stirred James Bond Martini, it's the fortified wine, often drunk with lemonade, and sold to sophisticated ladieeeeeez in the 1970s by Charlie's Angel Jaclyn Smith in a white silk trouser suit tied at the waist like a box of chocolates. "(Hello, I'm Jaclyn. Be a friend won't you? Get comfortable then you're ready for something you'll like … Try it.")
This was an age when real men drank real drinks (bitter because they were bitter, and mild if they had an identity crisis) and girls sipped at Cinzano, Babycham and Martini & Rossi of course. Amazingly, back in the day, booze was even more sexist than the world at large. Gender politics followed a simple rule – you were what you drank; any woman who ordered a pint was a dyke, any bloke who didn't was a poof, end of.
And now Martini is encouraging an ironic flowering of retro chic. Actually, its bitter isn't even bitter in the ale sense. It's simply an "explosion of flavours with gentle, bitter zesty lime and a touch of honey" that invites "everyone to rediscover the classic cocktails that its special recipe creates", according to those in the know. Martini bitter is aimed at men (particularly young'uns between the ages of 18 and 35).
As it happens, I was a reconstructed drinker from an early age. I had no truck with traditional divides. Between the ages of nine and 12 I was ill with encephalitis and the doctors didn't know how to fix it. My parents thought they did. Neither were really drinkers, but they got it in their head that alcohol was the answer. So in the corner of my bedroom they would leave a crate of bottled Guinness to be supped as and when it took my fancy. Perfectly appropriate you might think for a little boy in touch with his incipient manhood.
Yet in 1974 I proudly (if unwittingly) transcended the patriarchal hegemony of gender-specific quaffing, as my dad never said. Whenever my parents went out and left me in bed at home I insisted they brought me back a miniature bottle – so sure enough there was your testosterone-heavy Johnnie Walker and Bell's, but there was also Crème de Menthe, Advocaat, Cointreau, and the newly introduced Baileys. Girly drinks, boysy drinks, it made no odds to me.
It meant I grew up into a perfectly gender-neutral drinker, as happy to get wasted on Baileys and Bloody Mary as bitter; Crème de Menthe as Carlsberg (OK I'm lying about the crème de Menthe, there are limits). It's useful when you reach a certain age – there's only so many pints a fiftysomething can drink.
There is an exception, though. Even the most reconstructed of boozers will embrace their inner caveman in the right/wrong environment. On Tuesday night after football my friends go drinking. A dozen men drinking bitter or lager without exception. A dozen men who love their wine never touching a glass post footy. Cocktails, a nice refreshing rose, vodka and bitter lemon? You've got to be joking. If we really want to push the boat out we'll have a whisky, but of course we'll call it Scotch and have it without ice. Painful though it is to admit, I think the team behind Martini Bitter might have seen us coming. Reported by guardian.co.uk 8 hours ago.