Episode 107: Best Of—Reassessing the Vodka Martini With Keith Waldbauer, The Doctor’s Office

[This episode originally debuted in May 2022.] In the May/June 2022 issue of Imbibe, we featured a Vodka Martini from The Doctor’s Office in Seattle, and for this episode, we visit the bar and find out about their approach to the cocktail. We’re joined by TDO bar director Keith Waldbauer who shares details about the blind-tasting process that resulted in their preferred formula, the virtues of batching cocktails in advance, and coming to terms with vodka and vodka cocktails during the cocktail renaissance. Want to mix one of TDO’s Vodka Martinis? Here’s the recipe, and visit Imbibe on Instagram to see Keith Waldbauer walk us through the process.

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Paul Clarke 

Hey, everybody. Paul Clarke here from Imbibe magazine. I’m taking a few weeks away, but while I’m away, I wanted to revisit a couple of past episodes of Radio Imbibe that have proved to be among the most popular in our four plus years of preparing this podcast. The following episode first ran in May of 2022 and surprised us all by becoming and remaining one of our most downloaded episodes ever. Here’s that interview in its entirety. Looking at the Vodka Martini with my old friend Keith Waldbauer from the Doctor’s Office in Seattle. 

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Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe Magazine. I’m Paul Clarke, the executive editor of Imbibe. And if you told me 15 years ago as the cocktail snob I was then that one day I’d be devoting an entire podcast episode to talking about vodka Martinis, I’d probably have spilled my Bijou cocktail on the floor in shock and dismay. But times change and attitudes change. And you know what else? Vodka Martinis change.

So for this episode, we’re spring boarding off of our May-June issue and its cover story about vodka, to dive deep into the vodka Martini and reconsidering its merits and possibilities. To do this, I headed over to one of my favorite cocktail bars here in Seattle, the Doctor’s Office, where I sat down with the bar’s manager, my old friend Keith Waldbauer, to talk about how they blind tasted literally hundreds of different approaches to the vodka Martini before settling on the formula they serve, and about the qualities he looks for in preparing and serving their ideal vodka Martini. 

[music]

Paul Clarke

So we’re here in the Doctor’s Office in Seattle, Washington, with Keith Waldbauer. Keith, thanks for doing the podcast with us. 

Keith Waldbauer 

Paul, thanks for having me. 

Paul Clarke

Absolutely. You know, first off, the reason I want to chat with you is because our May-June issue has a feature on vodka, and we have a vodka Martini on the cover that is based on the recipe that you’re using here at the Doctor’s Office. Before we get into the details about the drink, tell us how does this particular cocktail fit in with the overall approach to the drinks menu here at the Doctor’s Office? 

Keith Waldbauer 

Well, the vodka Martini was one of five drinks that we started when we opened right before the lockdown. We opened with only five cocktails and they were all classics. We did the gin Martini, vodka Martini, Negroni, Manhattan, and Vesper. And all of those, we spent the first two months before we opened, we tasted over 300 variations of each of those cocktails. So pairing in the vodka Martini’s case, pairing every vodka that we get our hands on with every dry vermouth we get our hands on and we did it all blind. It took a really long time, and that’s how we ended up with our with our drink menu. So those were literally we only wanted to do classics. And then later on, of course, people wanted our own stuff, so we eventually caved in after it, when we reopened, and started offering original cocktails, too. 

Paul Clarke 

Right, Right. 

Keith Waldbauer

And but those core classics are still the core part of the menu here, though. The first thing people see. 

Paul Clarke 

And one of the things we wanted to highlight, in the magazine we’re talking about vodka, is the role of neutrality. Because, you know, until very recently, vodka was legally defined as, you know, colorless, odorless, flavorless. But if you taste a lot of vodka side by side, like the way you guys were doing, you notice that there is actually a good deal of range and complexity and differences between vodkas. It’s narrow. I mean, you need to really kind of focus on it, but there are differences there. So when you were looking for the right vodka match for your cocktail here, what role did that search for neutrality play? 

Keith Waldbauer 

So everyone knows what a Negroni tastes like. Everybody knows what a Manhattan tastes like. Vodka Martini, though, is open to a lot of interpretations because of those subtle differences that you said. Mostly, I did not give marching orders to the owner, Matt Powell, who was right next to me, tasting every one of these, along with our original chef, Rene Gutierrez. The only marching orders I had were I wanted the vodka Martini to taste as neutral and clean, actually, as more than neutral, as clean as possible. So that was kind of the idea to get a very clean vodka Martini out of the whole equation. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. Because when we’re talking neutrality, it doesn’t simply mean like the absence of everything else. There is actually like a positive quality that you’re looking for and cleanliness, that kind of crispness on the palate, you know, those all kind of factor into it. And so you said you tasted all of these different vodkas and all of these different requirements. What did that process look like on a daily basis as you were honing in, trying these vodkas, trying these different proportions, saying this is what we’re looking for? 

Keith Waldbauer 

Well, I mean, it sounds a lot funnier than it is. Everyone, everyone asked if they could join us. And I kind of look at them and say, you know, really, it’s not that fun doing all of those every single day because we did it every day for weeks. And, you know, you have to really, really concentrate. You have to eat a lot of food. The food had to have enough flavor. So we had just the blandest crackers that Matt could find.

We sat at Matt’s kitchen table cause the bar wasn’t ready yet, and we literally just had like, a grid system. And then we would read, pour them, label them, number them, and then just work our way down. And it was kind of like a kind of like the NCAA tournament, right? Single elimination. So we just kind of like ranked them in heats and then so on and so forth. You can’t just do whatever 300 vodka Martinis in a row first, right? So you had to kind of break it up a little bit.

Paul Clarke 

And I would imagine, you know, as you’re tasting these side by side and ranking them and comparing them, you know, I judge spirits competitions sometimes. And we judge the vodka flights that come out. And I remember the first time I ever judged one of these, I had two solid days of tasting vodkas. And, you know, it’s one thing to sit down and taste tequilas or whiskeys side by side and and kind of map out the universe that they’re providing you. With vodka it’s almost like being in a sensory deprivation tank where you’re looking for kind of any type of texture, any type of flavor, any type of aroma. And then mapping your way forward. Did the mapping out the vodka Martini pose more of a challenge, less of a challenge when you’re comparing it to, say, like a gin Martini or your Manhattan? 

Keith Waldbauer

I think in the final round, yes. Initially it was mostly just weeding out the ones that just weren’t going to work. Right. And so then you end up with, you know, your top 25 top 30 variations, and that’s when it gets a little bit more difficult and where the marching orders come more into play because obviously some vermouth and vodkas when paired together have an intense amount of flavor compared to other ones.

And so, again, we were looking we went we’re sticking to our guns on getting the cleanest Martini out there. If I remember right, there were about there could have been any number of the top ten were all pretty pretty close. But again, we did it. We did it blindly and chose the final one. That one was the most challenging but also the most fun for me as the Negroni, everyone was like, Oh, I would love to have been in the Negroni when it was the vodka Martini one. That was fun. 

Paul Clarke

Right. Okay, Interesting. Interesting. So when I first reached out to you about including your approach to the vodka Martini in the magazine, we both kind of laughed because we’re old school cocktail nerds. And, you know, I remember a time, we remember a time when, you know, in some bars or at least one bar that I can think of literally would not carry vodka and others would carry it, but still would be dismissive of it. Yeah. Okay. 

Keith Waldbauer 

So yeah, in the early days, sure, that was there’s a lot of people that were really crappy about vodka. The bar I worked at had a Cosmo on the menu, but it was gin and that’s that. Literally said I forget what they how we worded it. It was a juniper-infused vodka. Right. So I’ve been bartending for a very long time, and vodka has always been the number one category that people ask for. It’s not as common today at this bar anyway, but I think throughout the world, it still has to be up there. I don’t, I don’t know. I live in a bubble right now of mezcal and and peated scotch.

But even even now, I like the people that order our vodka Martini. Almost, almost always order it dirty, which, you know, is a little bit heartbreaking when you put in all this work to come up with the perfect clean vodka Martini. And they and they still want it dirty, which, you know, is fine, whatever that doesn’t it doesn’t really bother me other than I’m just like, Oh, I wish you would try it without it. Right. So we offer it on the side and Matt came up with this great idea of just letting people mix it themselves. And so we have like the little side of dirt.

Our cocktails for those who haven’t been here, come in, our pre batch ones come in beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks actually. And so we set that down on the table as well, pull it straight from the freezer, set it down, set down a little side of of olive brine and let them mix it themselves. 

Paul Clarke

So actually, I guess one thing I was wondering, you know, that was that was the past in many ways. Like you were saying, we’ve come to terms with vodka. Vodka. It’s you know, it’s it’s welcome at the party in this bar. You’re now in a bar that focuses on spirit-forward drinks. And you have a great selection of spirits from all around the world. How does vodka peacefully coexist with all of these mezcals and scotch whisky and interesting rums and everything else that you have?

Keith Waldbauer 

I think wonderfully, if you respect vodka on on what it does bring. And I think that was kind of what part of the bad attitude that persisted throughout the cocktail craft cocktail community about vodka was that it you know has no flavor. So it really doesn’t bring anything to the party. But that cleanliness is actually like kind of a it’s just a great blank canvas for other flavors. So here, like, I tried to somebody asked for something vodka based, I immediately try to get just barely detectable hints of other flavors that they want that they asked for outside of vodka.

So using essentially like making like an Arsenic and Old Lace cocktail has that very minimal amounts of absinthe and violette and you literally just basically getting the idea that they’re there without it being in your face. And that’s the trick with that drink. And I tried to do that with all the vodka Martini style drinks that we do, vodka drinks. Just try to get like just the idea of flavor and present a very clean and cold cocktail. 

Paul Clarke 

And vodka also gives you that opportunity to take something that has a really big, robust flavor to it and knock it down a little bit, kind of spread it out. Like I’m thinking of one cocktail that even when we were all dismissive of vodka cocktails, you would still see it at that bars like Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle, there was a cocktail now called the Harrington, but then it was the Drink With No Name.

And it was a way to get Chartreuse into a glass of somebody who was looking for a vodka cocktail. And it was taking you know, the whole principle was taking that expansiveness, that that’s, you know, that vacancy in some way that that vodka gives you and putting a little, you know, green Chartreuse, which just has that immense aroma and flavor to it and softening up, making it much more approachable to somebody who may not be quite ready for a last word or something. Yeah. 

Keith Waldbauer

Yeah. I wish I had more people ordering vodka drinks. I kept a bottle of vodka in the freezer specifically for that purpose for people asking for vodka cocktails. And then it just ended up taking too much space in the freezer for the very few opportunities I got to dig it out. 

Paul Clarke 

Yeah, well, you know, one of the things about the vodka Martini, vodka in general, and the vodka Martini specifically is, you know, even though there are still a number of people who still kind of look down their noses at it, I like to go back to the quote, you know, of Joaquín Simó, formerly of Pouring Ribbons at one point said, if you’re not drinking vodka Martinis then you’re clearly not eating enough caviar. 

Keith Waldbauer 

Yeah. 

Paul Clarke

So, so having having that bottle of vodka in the freezer, you know, it serves a role in every, every spirit, every cocktail has its time and place. Now, let’s talk about the vodka Martini itself. Like you said, you batch them all in advance. Why is that? 

Keith Waldbauer

Well, for one, we’re, you know, we’re a 12-seat bar. So the idea was to run this whole place with just one person. First of all, I wanted to get drinks in people’s hands fast, and that’s, that’s just pre-batching. So speed was number one. But number two, the precision is more of actually the precision of dilution is important because right from the start I wanted the drinks to be as cold as possible. So I wanted to pull the vodka Martini from the freezer. Same with the gin Martini and the Vesper with adding the dilution ahead of time.

I was able to just get as cold a cocktail as possible right up to the point. Kept in the fridge, right up to the point where it was about to freeze. So it gives this really nice viscous texture that I wanted for specifically the Martinis. So precision, speed. 

Paul Clarke 

Temperature, right. And that control aspect, I mean, it really does factor in because, you know, if you went through the process of tasting your way through 300 different bills of a vodka Martini, then you want to nail it. You know, you don’t want to have to gone through all that work without, you know, and then have, you know, some degree of variability. Also, I mean, it should be noted that doing things this way by pre diluting a cocktail and chilling it from a sustainability standpoint, it’s much better. You have much less water waste coming into play from from tossing out your ice after every cocktail shaker. So you shared with us your proportion, your formula for the vodka Martini. Could you share it with us now? Just just tell us how you put it together. 

Keith Waldbauer

Matt works in milliliters as a doctor, right? So he is a little bit better for us to do it that way. So with this one, it’s 80, 20, 20. So basically a 4:1:1 ratio, right? 

Paul Clarke

Which is beautiful because you can do that as like a single-serving cocktail you just want to like batch it and stick in your freezer for when you get home from work or you can do a batch of a bottle of them. As long as you’re following that same 4:1:1, or if you’re having a big party, you can, you know, get out, get out the 10-gallon buckets and and, you know, put it together that way. 

Keith Waldbauer

Yes. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, 80ml vodka, 20ml vermouth, 20ml water. For you home bartenders, I strongly urge you to pre-batch your Martinis and stick them in the freezer. That way you have an ice-cold cocktail any time you want it with little to no work at all. 

Paul Clarke

And stick a glass in there while you’re at it because you will thank yourself later when you come home, and like, I have an ice cold Martini. An ice cold glass. Yes. 

Keith Waldbauer 

Yes, exactly. 

Paul Clarke

Excellent. Well, Keith, thanks so much for taking the time to walk us through the magic of the vodka Martini and for sharing all of that. 

Keith Waldbauer

My pleasure. 

[music]

Paul Clarke 

Check out The Doctor’s Office on Instagram @tdoseattle. And in case you didn’t write down Keith’s formulation of The Doctor’s Office vodka Martini, then no worries. We’ve got the full details on that drink on our website at imbibemagazine.com. Just click the link in this episode’s notes and we’ll get you there. Check out our Instagram feed for a video of Keith preparing and serving the cocktail, then make one for yourself at home. 

We’ve got lots more recipes and stories for you at imbibemagazine.com. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook for all of our day to day coverage and subscribe to Radio Imbibe on your favorite podcast app to keep up with future episodes. And if you’re not already a subscriber to the print and or digital issues of Imbibe, then let’s get you on board. Just click on the link in this episode’s notes and we’ll be happy to help you out. 

That’s it for this episode. I’m Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.