Serious Eats: Drinks
The Cherry on Top: To Garnish or Not
An olive skewered on a toothpick is the universal symbol for a martini; but are such trappings really necessary?
Eric Felten touches on the olive and other cocktail-related ornamentation in last weekend's Wall Street Journal column, "Consider the Trimmings." Invoking Walter Gropius' harangue against "florid aestheticism," Felten addresses the questionable necessity of cocktail garnish, along with the East Coast - West Coast divide that's starting to arise.
In recent years, bartenders such as Jackson Cannon at Eastern Standard in Boston have eschewed garnishes that don't provide any flavorful or aromatic contributions to the drink, while the "Farmers' Market" bartenders on the West Coast have started to employ a wide array of garnishes ranging from single basil leaves to arrangements of edible flowers.
The subject of cocktail garnishes is even taking center stage at mixology's highest-profile event of the year: this summer's Tales of the Cocktail features a session titled "The Cocktail Garnish: From Functional to Fabulous."
It's hard to picture a Manhattan without a bright red cherry resting at the bottom of the glass, but such a thing performs no real function -- or does it? Do you find the olive in your martini a significant part of the appeal, or is it a ubiquitous and maddening distraction (as mixological maestro Dale DeGroff says in the article, "How many of my icy Martinis have been ruined by a heedless bartender skewering three huge heat-bombs of olives and thrusting them into my drink?")?
What's your take on the presence or absence of olives, cherries, lemon curls, mint sprigs and all other manner of cocktail regalia?
About the author: Paul Clarke blogs about cocktails at The Cocktail Chronicles and writes regularly on spirits and cocktails for Imbibe magazine. He lives in Seattle, where he works as a writer and magazine editor.