Episode 122: Martini Magic With Natasha Bahrami, Trevor Easter, and Abigail Gullo

One of the most celebrated cocktails of the 20th century is continually finding new fans, as bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts around the world discover the Martini’s magic. Our May/June 2025 issue celebrates the Martini, and for this episode, we talk about the iconic cocktail with three veteran bartenders and bar owners: Natasha Bahrami of The Gin Room in St. Louis, Trevor Easter of The Butterscotch Den in Sacramento, and Abigail Gullo of Loa in New Orleans.

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Paul Clarke

Hey everybody, welcome back to Radio Imbibe from Imbibe Magazine. I’m Paul Clarke, Imbibe’s Editor-in-Chief. 

And if you’ve been observing or working in or just simply drinking in the contemporary cocktail landscape for any length of time, you’ve no doubt noticed how different classic cocktails have seen their popularity rise from time to time. With bartenders refreshing their understanding of the drink, and with drinkers going absolutely gaga over formulations that may have first been put together more than a century ago. If you put together a timeline of the past 20 years or so, you can map each cocktail’s path of rediscovery, reappraisal, and rebirth.

The Manhattan hit it early, right around 20 years ago, when everybody was suddenly talking about rye whiskey again for the first time in generations and pouring newly available ingredients like Carpano antica formula vermouth into every drink. The Old Fashioned got a boost both from the cocktail renaissance and from Mad Men, and rode the wave of a newly energized bourbon industry, and the Negroni—you know, 15 or 20 years ago, Negronis were still very much an insider type of cocktail in the U.S. But that changed course in a big way once American drinkers learned how to love bitter flavors again, and with a little boost from the annual Negroni Week celebration. 

But for a good chunk of the 20th century, the cocktail that ruled them all was the dry Martini. The Martini started out in a mixing glass, but it wound up moving into the culture at large—becoming a signifier not only of class and style and a particular way of life—but iconic of the entire class of cocktails itself. It’s not for nothing that the recognized image for both the neon signs outside old-school cocktail lounges and for the cocktail emoji on your smartphone—is the classic Martini in a V-shaped glass with an olive garnish. 

In the world of adult drinks, the Martini is the most grown-up of cocktails. So maybe it’s fitting that it took until the current cocktail renaissance was reaching its own drinking age for the Martini to move back into the mainstream. Many of today’s cocktail bars have signature Martinis or have full Martini menus. But unlike the dark days of the 1980s and the current millennium, when pretty much anything in a cocktail glass was called a Martini, these Martinis bear much more allegiance to the original cocktail at the core.

And while they’re rediscovering and re-embracing this classic core, bartenders are also remembering that the Martini has always had as much flexibility as any other classic cocktail. There are limits to it for sure, and the Martini needs these boundaries. But once you start working with different proportions, or different vermouths, or aromatized wines, and adding a few drops of bitters, or other accents, then the Martini family becomes very broad very quickly while still remaining, deep down in its heart, true to the original concept. 

Our May/June issue goes hard with Martinis, surveying today’s Martini landscape. And for this episode, we’re getting a head start on that issue with a roundtable discussion with three veteran bartenders sharing their thoughts and their approaches to the Martini. ‘

Abigail Gullo is a longtime friend of ours who appeared on their very first episode of this podcast and recently contributed to the pages of Imbibe as a writer. Abigail is currently heading the bar at Loa in the International House Hotel in New Orleans. You may remember Natasha Bahrami from this year’s Imbibe 75 coverage. Natasha is the owner of the Gin Room in St. Louis and founder of the Gin World events that have been taking place all across the country. Trevor Easter has been a part of many bars and spirits programs over the years. He’s an owner of several bars in Sacramento, California, including the Butterscotch Den, whose approach to the freezer Martini appears on the cover of the new issue of Imbibe. 

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Paul Clarke

Abigail, Natasha, Trevor, welcome to Radio Imbibe. 

Trevor Easter 

Hey! 

Natasha Bahrami 

Thanks so much.

Abigail Gullo 

Thank you so much.

Paul Clarke 

I’m so happy to have all of you back on the podcast, not only because I love working with you all so much, but also because for this particular episode, for this particular reason, it’s all about Martinis. Our brand new May/June issue looks at the modern world of the Martini and as we were working on it and talking to various folks in the industry, including some of y’all, one question I kept coming back to was, why is it taking us so long for us to reach this modern Martini moment? I mean, like if you look at the Cocktail Renaissance over the past 20 years or so, we had our Manhattan phase, where everyone was doing like Manhattans and Manhattan-type things.

We all got into daiquiris for a while. We all rediscovered the Negroni and became all about Negronis for a while. But the Martini, it seemed like, you know, for this royalty of 20th century cocktails, it seemed like it was kind of holding back for a while. It had not fully blossomed out there in the world. So to get us started, what took us so long and why is the Martinis moment happening right now? Abigail, can I ask you to get us started? 

Abigail Gullo 

Absolutely. I can tell you exactly why it took so long is that all those other cocktails you mentioned, the old fashioned, the Negroni, Daiquiri, they never strayed too far from their original recipe. Whereas the Martini went crazy. Like all over the world, Martinis began to mean a different thing. And in fact, it became so synonymous with its glass that anything served in that glass kind of became a Martini. And it was very, very different from the original drink and what it meant.

So I think it took a long time for us to really kind of had to go back and say, no, no, look, this is the original Martini. And even then, the ingredients can be so polarizing, and there’s so many different ways to do that classic recipe that there became a lot of education and a lot of push and pull and back and forth between the guest and the bartender to, you know, because we are in the business of serving guests and not just serving drinks. So I wanted to make people happy and serve them their best idea of a Martini while also telling them what my best idea of a Martini. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. 

Abigail Gullo

And that’s a lot of work. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. It seems like with Martinis, you know, to your point, there are Martinis, and then there are, I’m going to throw up the air quotes that people can’t see, Martinis, you know, things where the Martini word got stuck onto things. I think a lot of that was happening like in the 80s, the 90s, the early part of this century. And Trevor, I know that you and I talk about this a little bit for the magazine. 

Trevor Easter 

Yeah. Well, the air quote Martini, as you call it, is arguably like, it’s such a regional thing. You know, it’s like, depends on where you’re at. But the air quote Martini in some cases are more popular. Like you see them almost more often on menus as like, well, let’s call it an Espresso Martini. Right. And I think what that does for guests is it kind of creates a little bit of confusion.

Oftentimes we do things like a dealer’s choice and they say, I like Martinis. We say, well, how do you make your Martini? And they’re like, well, it’s with lychee. And you’re like, oh, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha. It’s possibly one of the most confusing categories because it is more of an abstract idea than an actual specific recipe to a lot of people. Not to me. I feel very specific about it, but to consumers, I think they’re just maybe unaware that they’re confused by it. 

Paul Clarke 

Right, right. I think it’s the thing where we started to take it for granted in the cocktail world where like a daiquiri is this, you know, a margarita is this. Martini is, you know, still out there in the public mind. It was everything. Everything that goes in a V-shaped glass or into a cocktail glass. I think we won that war to a certain degree over the past few years. I mean, we’ve had to like seed some territory like, you know, the Espresso Martini. What are you going to do? Pornstar Martini. What are you going to do? It’s out there. It’s accepted.

But I think, you know, other than that, we’ve been pretty good about putting boundaries up around it. One thing I was wondering also, each of you work in very different markets in the country. You know, the Martini coming back is very much a global thing. You see it in Japan, you see it in the UK, you see it all over the world. Abigail, you’re in New Orleans. Trevor, you’re in Sacramento. Natasha, you’re in St. Louis. You’re seeing very different things, I would imagine. So I’m wondering, from each of your perspectives, what’s the news on the street, the perspective on the street in terms of the Martinis? Are people enjoying them? How are they coming about them? Do they have that kind of understanding? Natasha, can I ask you to get us started? 

Natasha Bahrami 

Absolutely. And as you said, we’re in different parts of the country. We say as lovingly as possible, the Gin Room is in Bumblebutt, St. Louis, Missouri, which is not really an abstract place now that we’re kind of become the center of gin for the United States in some ways, at least education forward. We were told that nobody drinks gin here, right? So we had to create a demographic base. We had to teach the range and spectrum of gin and Martinis, of course. I fell in love with gin through a dirty Martini, and that was my love story. However, we’ve seen this through magazines, through articles.

The resurgence of the classic Martini in its various iterations is what’s happening right now, but it’s been so crazy that right here in the Midwest, although we have gone through the modern Martini spins, as you would say, There has been this love story with a classic Martini from wet Martinis, definitely using bitters in those 50-50s and wet Martinis to obviously the big pull, the dirty Martini and Martinis with salinity to it has really stuck pretty hard here for the last, I would say about eight It’s been something that you will find on menus all over.

And although now in the last two years espresso Martinis have kind of exploded again, you’ll still see this classic Martini on the menus and it’s been exciting because we’ve had to push a little bit harder because that conversation wasn’t already here and so we somehow have people who are asking questions outside of do you want olives or a twist, right?

They’re actually saying I actually want a 50-50 wet with a particular vermouth that is happening. So it’s something I was very impressed that I have been seeing happening here and that we are obviously there’s markets much bigger than ours who have been pushing this Martini movement.

Paul Clarke 

Right.

Natasha Bahrami 

For years. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. And, now, Trevor, you’ve worked both as a gin brand ambassador so you’ve seen, you know, people who are right on top of Martinis but also in Sacramento, you mentioned when we’re talking for the magazine that at your bar, Butterscotch Den, sometimes you may be the very first actual Martini that a lot of your guests…

Trevor Easter 

Yeah, yeah. 

Paul Clarke 

…you’re the first one to serve that. What’s that experience like and what are you hearing from the folks who come in and kind of make that, you know, that first crossover? 

Trevor Easter

I always like to flash my credentials that my daughter’s name is Juniper. So I get to flex on that. That says a little bit of something about our relationship with gin in my family. So for us, the big thing was after, you know, 20 years in the industry, I’ve attempted to sell Martinis as straight up two-to-one Martinis or, you know, a Martini on a menu or some type of riff and it doesn’t always land and we felt like we wanted to create this idea that the cultural correct thing to do in our space is to have one of these. So we almost had to kind of bluff a bit on the beginning and say, well, it’s the world famous freezer Martini. You get it with a steak and a bump of caviar.

And we had to build these like novelties around it to then get people to kind of jump into the deep end. So we felt like selling them on verbiage wasn’t going to work, but culturally pressuring them to try the thing that everyone else here does really made it land. And so we, you know, this bar isn’t very old, it’s three years old, but, you know, we put it on the mirror as if it had already won all these accolades.

The whole staff kind of bought into this whole charade of like, you know, what do I get? I’ve never been here and it is a novel restaurant. If anyone’s unaware, you grill your own food, it’s a steakhouse, but there’s a giant grill in the middle of the room. And so once that wall comes down from the novelty of it and you’re like, well, everyone gets the freezer Martini and pairs it with, you know, a steak or, or whatever. You see people who would generally gloss over that on the menu, dive right into it and give it a shot.

So I would say in the very beginning, we sell a thousand of them a month. This is like a, this is the number one selling item is just a 50:50 gin Martini out of the freezer. And I would say in the very first, maybe two or three months when we were brand new, the majority of people getting them were like, I never drank gin Martinis. And there were certainly a lot of people who were like, I’ve never had caviar. So we were selling $8 freezer Martinis with $3 caviar bumps, knowing that we would take the financial hit to just kind of be the gateway drug. That was our goal. And we’re here. It’s insane. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. 

Trevor Easter 

It’s on the front of the newest issue of Imbibe, which is incredible. 

Paul Clarke

That’s true. And I just want to point out before we get on to Abigail, that it is on the cover of the current issue, the new issue of Imbibe. And we do have your recipe and description for making this at home as well. Abigail, you, you exist in kind of an interesting cross current because you’re in New Orleans, you’re, you’re, you’re not working in New York currently, but New Orleans has lots of people coming through. And it’s also very kind of, you know, culinary oriented city. What do you see in terms of the request for, for Martinis, the understanding of Martinis that you get? I would imagine it’s all across the board. 

Abigail Gullo

Yeah. We’ve come a long way in the 15 years I’ve lived here. Like when I, I remember quite a few guests coming in, scanning my cocktail menu and then looking up and say, but do you have a Martini list? And thankfully, it hasn’t happened in many years. So I really feel like that. the crowds are kind of coming along to us eventually, which is great. And I do feel like there’s a newfound appreciation for gin that is definitely happening. We’re very lucky.

There’s no, there’s no city, I think, in the world more diverse in a bar sense than New Orleans. We have everything from cocktail bars to cocktail dive bars to restaurant bars, hotel bars, and we’re kind of catering to all different sorts of people. So we are very good at pivoting and being flexible and kind of listening to the guests’ needs, and that’s why our hospitality is so famous. Also, most people come to us knowing that we’re a cocktail-focused city, and they’re willing to try things that they wouldn’t try. They trust these classic drinks in our hands because we’re kind of famous for them.

So I really want to make sure that we put our best foot forward and really create something delicious for them. I was very fond of introducing people, so many people eat raw oysters here, and the pleasure of a dozen raw oysters and an ice-cold Martini is exquisite, especially if you add a little sherry to that Martini. So I was like really, really, really, really happy to have this.

And yes, we also $7 freezer door Martinis on Martini Mondays, teeny Martini Mondays that we do here. But I’d love to pick your brain, Trevor, about getting more people in, because I cannot believe people are not coming in for this deal. And we do give people an option, vodka or gin. You know, we are still very much catering to people’s needs. I really like, like, the new idea of a Martini list, like what St. John’s doing at Gage and Tollner, in that there’s a Martini list that says classic gin, classic vodka, dirty gin, dirty vodka, perfect Gibson and turf. And I’m like, perfect. There’s your Martini list. This is the, this is the, I would say modern Martini list, but this is actually a Martini list from the 1800s, which fits our New Orleans aesthetic very well as well. 

Paul Clarke

I think you hit the nail on the head right there, where you say the modern Martini is kind of the classic Martini.

Trevor Easter

Mm hmm. 

Paul Clarke

because we have come back to it. And I think one of the things about the Martini is for years and years. I mean, for really for decades, if you look at some of the newspaper and magazine write-ups all throughout the last half of the 20th century, it was all filled with, you know, these, these ideologues about Martinis, like a Martini is exactly this and nothing but that, this much gin, no vermouth, or like just a, you know, teaspoon or drops or whatever of vermouth.

I think people got into the mindset of thinking that was what a Martini was, was you had to be an ideologue about it. But the Martini has always been much more flexible. Then we give it credit for it. And I think we are now kind of re-appreciating that and understanding that. On that note, for these individual cocktail episodes, we like to break down the drink piece by piece so that we can then put it back together and you can kind of understand how the parts work a little bit better.

So for the Martini, let’s start off with gin, because it’s always going to start with gin at some point. We’re going to get to vodka in a moment, but let’s start with gin for now. What kinds of properties are you looking for in a gin that’s destined for a Martini? Natasha, you are, you’re at the gin room. I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna toss it over. 

Natasha Bahrami 

I’d love to jump in here. I think that’s my favorite part of the question about a Martini, is how wide of range of flavors a Martini can be. We can say, okay, a Negroni is the class, like one to one to one, right? And like, you know what you’re going to get. But isn’t it exciting to actually be a little bit more creative with your Martini and your cocktail. And so obviously we teach gin is our passion, but that’s the thing.

And you could have a Martini with a gin looking for a nice salinity range within the, the gin that you’re using. You can look for something that has a more creative body and mouthfeel and viscosity to it. However, going back to your actual question, what is a Martini gin and what are the attributes that I would say, these are ideal Martini gins. And I actually use this as a characteristic. When we teach our blind tasting seminars, we have a category called Martini gins and those attributes. One, it should be juniper forward. Just it, that’s one of the attributes that really lends itself well to a Martini. Two, it should be so well balanced that it has its pepper notes, its citrus notes, its flavors that it’s not lopsided in one way.

It’s not necessarily so poignant in one direction that the rest gets unbalanced, right? So that’s another attribute that we consider to be ideal Martini gins. I think the third one is that it really lends itself to being modified by a fortified wine. And so, as was mentioned, sherrys, aperitivos, vermouths, and really being able to shine by being modified. And these are some beautiful attributes that we consider for gins for Martinis. 

Paul Clarke 

Right, right. Trevor, do you have thoughts?

Trevor Easter

Yeah. 

Paul Clarke

You obviously love gin. You’ve made that clear. 

Trevor Easter

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. way we think about, I have a hard time talking about, I’ve spent most of my career making other people drinks. So it’s weird for me to like explain my take. I’m not super versed in like explaining how I like things. But when we teach gin, we like to start with the idea that the cocktail is an accessory to the experience. So we try to not put our cocktail center. We want, we’d almost rather you be like, I don’t remember what I got. It was so good. And I love this place. And I come back. Then to not talk to your friends and wax poetic about esoteric liqueurs or whatever.

So when we develop our cocktails, we have this thing where we really like to choose things that get along with others. So our whole objective is we like gins that play really well with vermouth. And we’ve, and this is always an evolving thing because that’s just how we are as people. But it’s like, you know, currently we really love citrus forward London dry, you know, extra dry. That really is a canvas for the, the really fascinating vermouths to paint on top of. And we also really love low ABV. We almost always try to make every drink a little bit lower than the status quo on ABV. And so for us, we need a punchy juniper heavy gin. I’m going to, I’m going to, they don’t pay me anymore, but I’m going to say, you know, traditional London dries.

I don’t know, maybe Plymouth Beefeater or something like that. And then, and then let it paint a canvas on it. So for us, we do love the esoteric avant-garde oyster shell gins and things that are Dorito-flavored stuff that are coming. Like that’s, I get it. But when we think about making a Martini or any cocktail. For that matter, it’s how does it play with others? Does it get along? Because it really needs to be a sandwich of flavor.  

Paul Clarke 

Right. 

Trevor Easter 

You know, that’s kind of our take.

Paul Clarke 

Right, right, right. And, you know, we, we mentioned a moment vodka Martinis. Have we come to peace with, with the vodka Martini? I know that was another, you know, kind of sticking point for a lot of people for a number of years. It’s not a Martini. You know, I think we have other things going in the world now where, you know, whether or not you like to have vodka in your Martini, it’s not the biggest problem anymore. Have we come to peace with it? And if so, what are we looking for? 

Abigail Gullo 

If someone wants to pay me $16 for a Grey Goose Martini shaken hard with two ounces of olive juice in it and one ounce of Grey Goose, I am happy to do that for them.

Trevor Easter 

Yeah. 

Abigail Gullo 

That’s going to work out fine for my cause. 

Trevor Easter 

Exactly. 

Paul Clarke

Olive juice pays the bills. 

Trevor Easter 

Totally. I mean.

Abigail Gullo 

No, I just, And, you know, I know how, not close the trap on my strainer after I shake it so they get all those ice chips on top because they love that textual experience. You know what, who am I to judge? I know how to do that. I’m very technically inclined. I’m a professional. Why wouldn’t I give them what they want? I don’t have to stir that dirty Martini.

And, and if you want it really dirty, like filthy dirty, I’m not putting any vermouth in there. It’s just going to get lost. I’m not putting any bitters in there. I’m just giving them what they want. And when they tell me it’s the best dirty Martini they’ve ever had, I’m proud. I’m super proud. I’m proud because not only did I give them what they liked, but I presented it in such a beautiful way, in a classical technique way, because I know how to use my tools, that it made them so happy. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. 

Abigail Gullo 

And I’m happy because I’m collecting that $16.

Trevor Easter

That was awesome.

Paul Clarke

Yeah, we’ve gone right into dirty mode. Let’s stick with dirty for a moment because you brought up some really good points there. And the thing is, it’s also one of those things where, you know, especially if you work in, if you have a restaurant as part of the bar. Where, you know, a dirty Martini doesn’t just have to be like the stuff that came out of the giant, you know, jar of olives that you got at Costco or whatever. You can actually make a dirty Martini, make the brine really nice. You can really kind of put some thought to it and really kind of conceptualize it. 

Abigail Gullo 

Absolutely. And we have such nice vermouths now that if if you if they do want a vodka Martini with flavor, you know, I want a vodka Martini, but very clean. I’m like, I’ve got beautiful vermouth that will shine playing up against that vodka as well. So, yeah, we have a lot more tools in our arsenal to use to make really exceptional drinks for people in the way that they. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. And, you know, I will admit I was one of those sticklers for a long time. You know, Martinis with gin. Damn it. That’s what it is. But it wasn’t until a few years ago I was working on something with vodka and had to drink some vodka Martinis to just kind of like put myself in the right mindset. And I thought, you know what? These have a time and a place. know, a well-made, well-balanced, crisp, lovely, cold vodka Martini definitely has its role in the world. Are there aspects you look for in the vodka when you’re going that route? If somebody wants that kind of thing, they want like that crisp, clean kind of thing, but they want vodka instead of gin. Are there things you keep in mind? 

Abigail Gullo 

Yeah, I like the aspect of like a wheated vodka that has a little softness to it. I also like like a bison vodka that has like a little bit of flavor, a little bit of vanillins to it. Kind of help make that pop as well. Again, it also kind of depends on what vermouth you’re using if you’re going to do that. But yeah, there’s plenty of beautiful, beautiful vodkas out there. 

Trevor Easter

Can I add something on the vodka front? Is that okay? Because I like I can’t agree any more. This is awesome. Like I feel like we just became best friends. Because that is 100% correct. We’ve been teaching this lately. And I feel like it’s really important, especially for consumers to understand. But when bars make decisions about what they carry, there’s implications on a carbon footprint, like how far away did it come from? You know, how it’s made? Is it sustainably made? How do they treat their people? Vodka to me feels like the biggest category to put your foot down on that and say, you know, it’s nearly impossible for the average palate to even, especially in a dirty Martini, discern these things.

Texture, I can pick up on that. I think some people also can. But when we have now decided to carry vodkas or recommend them, it’s like, well, how close is it from here? How many trucks did it go on or a boat? And there’s so many distilleries now. It’s like, if this is defined as a relatively neutral spirit, something that doesn’t really have too much nuance to it, then go buy it from your neighbor and use that and get people excited about that or go buy it from a place that uses ugly fruit as the base instead of throwing away food.

You know, it’s like that when people ask us for a vodka recommendation, I’m like, here’s why you should support these people. I think a lot of times as bar owners and bar managers, we have a tendency to chase the money. And those brands don’t necessarily, they’re having to buy our loyalty. And the vodka category, I’m happy to say, no, thank you. I buy it from this guy, you know, that I really respect and I like and treats people really well. So that’s how we choose our vodkas that we like to use. 

Paul Clarke 

That’s, I mean, I did not expect to get such a compelling answer on the vodka question, but that is a really compelling, that’s an awesome answer on the vodka question. 

Trevor Easter 

Thank you. 

Paul Clarke 

Let’s, now if I could just kind of shift gears for a little bit and to get to my favorite part, and that’s the vermouth question. Because really, I mean, people who poo-poo vermouth have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. Because really, this is, this is where beauty or part of the beauty lies in a Martini. It gives you so many different kinds of options, so many directions, so much stuff to play with.

Before we get into talking about proportions or how much or how little vermouth is ideal in a Martini, can we talk about the vermouth itself? You know, dry vermouth, of course, is traditional, but to play cocktail nerd history for a moment, we need to remember sweet vermouth has always been a part of the Martini story. So we can’t get stuck in the mud or stuck in our own minds of thinking it’s dry and dry only and nothing else can work. With that in mind, what are the fun ways to follow this? Are there some dry vermouths that you really enjoy? Are there properties to dry vermouth? And where do you start playing loosey-goosey with, like, bringing in blanc vermouth or other kinds of aromatized or fortified wines? 

Trevor Easter 

We like to zhuzh it up, so it’s very rare that we will just do it, two to one with a little bit of orange bitters or something. So when it comes to vermouth, I’m a bit old school about it. I can remember the days when, in the cocktail bars, Carpano Antica showed up, and we were like, wah. You know, it was only Martini Rossi for a long time. So for me, I’m really loyal to those kind of, like, old school. So we do a lot of Dolin dry, but I’ll tell you what, we are a sneaky sherry place. All of our bars. We’re going to teaspoon it; we’re going to dash it. We’re going to put it in some way, shape, or form.

And we are also, and I’ll go ahead and tell you, we have a couple of Martini rules in our house here. You know, we really love blanc vermouth, period. Like, its texture is incredible. It flirts with the sweet side a little bit, and it does a wonderful job of increasing the texture in a cocktail. Another fun little rule that we have about the vermouth is for the most part, a lot of the brands have kind of like the metal top that makes that wonderful like click, click, click noise when you open it. And one of our house policies we teach all of our young bartenders is that if you ever open a vermouth bottle and it makes the click noise, you’re obligated to make a 50:50 Martini for anyone, yourself included, because that’s the best the vermouth is going to taste.

I’m going to tell you, I think I stole that from the Teardrop Lounge in Portland, Oregon one time. I think Daniel Shoemaker told me that. But anyway, so when it comes to vermouth, you know, we’re pretty traditionalist. We like to, like I said, we like to pick ingredients that play well with others. And I have a tendency to lean towards the older brands who are less showy and more about getting along. Yeah, that’s my take. 

Paul Clarke 

Abigail, you’d mentioned, you know, doctoring a Martini with Sherry. And is Sherry, how much is Sherry of value when we’re talking about Martinis? And is it fair game? I mean, vermouth, vermouth is a very particular kind of thing. But really, we’re talking about aromatized and fortified wines. And that really opens us up to a lot of directions. 

Abigail Gullo 

Absolutely. Yeah, no, I’ve kind of discovered my sweet spot for a Martini is actually one part Manzanilla, one part gin, one part dry vermouth. We have a lot of bars down here also using a split modifier base of dry and blanc vermouth together in the cocktail as well. I’d have a cocktail on the menu right now that’s doing that as well. Yeah, I think they absolutely have a place. You can’t go too crazy. You know, then it just becomes a Bamboo, you know, and that’s a different cocktail.

But would I put a Bamboo in the Martini family? Absolutely. Absolutely. Just like I’d put an Adonis in the Manhattan family. Like, they’re all kind of, you know, cousins and related. And you’re just using another fortified wine. And, yeah, I think that there’s a lot of freedom to use other things. We’re using Madeira in Manhattan variations and Amaro. So why not, you know, zhuzh up our Martini variations with these same fortified wines? 

Paul Clarke 

Natasha, where are you going with your vermouths there in St. Louis? 

Natasha Bahrami 

Clearly, we’re all in agreement here. But I think one of the biggest pushes for Martini education is the aromatized, fortified wine education, period. I think it is one of the biggest advocates that is pushing people into Martinis and helping people understand that there is something outside of a dirty Martini, for one. That’s something that we’re still, that’s something that is still, we’re still kind of learning and understanding. And that aromatized wine can be your very best friend in so many ways. And I think it’s one of the biggest reasons why 50:50s, wet Martinis have been exploding because we’ve gotten so many more amazing vermouths, sherries, fortified wines that have been coming out there, aperitivos, things like that, that can be used in this way.

But I think that’s, over the summertime especially, one of the biggest things we do every single month on Sundays, we host an education seminar with not only industry shows up, but consumers. We get on average 60 people on these seminars, where we’re going through a whole splice. Whether it’s blanc vermouths in general, which are extremely different from Italy to Spain, significantly, and France. So really understanding those range. Can we say this can be a barrier to understanding Martinis because there’s such complexities that are going on with this? Yes.

Can we also say it’s making Martinis even more exciting? Because there is such a range that we can play with and be excited about. But I think I would agree 100% that blanc vermouths have been one of the most biggest excitement and pushes for the industry right now. Because it creates such a mouthfeel. You can even have a dry, blanc Martini. When you use the right gin, maybe you’re using a higher proof gin. Maybe you’re using a gin, you’re still getting low proof. You’re just using a higher gin and cutting it, perhaps, in a 50:50. You’re using something that has enough character and body, enough juniper, enough botanicals, that you can cut it expressly with these aromatized wines that keep us excited about Martinis. 

Paul Clarke 

And I think, you know, today with the range of small producers and small importers who are bringing in really cool things in the country now, we have access to things that all kind of fit within that same vein. I mean, you have things like Cocci Americano. You have quinquinas like Cap Cors Blanc. You even have, you know, dry vermouths from Spain built on a base of sherry. It kind of like gloms everything together.

So really, when I said this is my favorite part of it and the part that excites me about talking about Martinis, it’s true because this is where there are so many options and so many of them are very, very good. Before we get into actually composing it, putting it together, there are other modifiers that can come in. I mean, we’ve mentioned orange bitters traditionally coming into a Martini. Is there room dash of that, a few drops of that? And if so, what are the kinds of things that you like to just, just a little dollop of that into a Martini and it’s still within the realm of possibilities?

Trevor Easter 

Salt for sure. I have to say.

Natasha Bahrami

Always. 

Trevor Easter

A smidge of absinthe, depending on, you know, for us, when we look at the vermouth, we’re like, what do we want to extract out of this vermouth? Like, what is the one thing we want to zoom in on? So, either we’ll do like a very small dash of absinthe or some sort of like herb that we want to like make it more seasonal that time of year. Lemon verbena, you know, some sort of, you know, getting, getting those cool deep notes out of the dry vermouth.

But yeah, I mean, we’re putting salt in everything. Salt makes everything better. It’s like, what are we waiting for? Why did the margarita only get it? It’s ridiculous. So, yeah, I think for me, salt. And we really like to dash absinthe in. We’re like, the point where you wouldn’t notice, if we took it away, you would notice something missing, but you don’t notice it existing. 

Abigail Gullo 

Oh, yeah, I rinse my daiquiris with absinthe. I put absinthe in it. 

Trevor Easter 

Oh, that’s a great idea. 

Paul Clarke 

Ooh, okay, I have something new on my to-do list. Yeah. 

Abigail Gullo

The baby bartenders are coming up with some great things. One of my favorite Martinis from a local restaurant here in New Orleans is doing fig-infused vermouth in their Martini. My neighbor’s fig tree is popping off right now, so I’m going to grab some leaves and do the same here. 

Paul Clarke 

Nice. 

Abigail Gullo

By what we have seasonally growing here, what we can find locally, and making that Martini have that unique taste of place that is part of the New Orleans culinary culture. 

Paul Clarke 

Right, right. And, you know, like when I’ve looked around at Martini menus and trying Martinis around, like you say, things like olive leaf-infused vermouth or olive leaf-infused gin, or, you know, a Martini that has just a couple of drops of yellow chartreuse in there, or like maybe a bar spoon of an eau de vie, just a little kind of accent to help kind of play everything together. These are all kind of fair game, and kind of, you know, you can go in different directions. So there you are. 

Abigail Gullo 

I made a muffaletta Martini. 

Paul Clarke

Ooh. 

Abigail Gullo

Sesame oil. 

Paul Clarke

Uh-huh. 

Abigail Gullo

Sicilian olive oil. 

Paul Clarke

Oh, wow. 

Trevor Easter

Yeah. 

Abigail Gullo

And we had all.

Trevor Easter

It’s a bit like a bologna negroni. 

Paul Clarke

That’s great.

Abigail Gullo

A muffaletta Martini. Just kept calling it the muff Martini. 

Trevor Easter

Love it. 

Paul Clarke

Now, you know, the question of proportions, we’ve touched upon that a number of times. We’ve talked two to one. They’re equal parts. We’ve done, we have the reverse Martini in this issue of the magazine. I don’t want to dwell on that too much, but basically what I want to do, we’ve gone through the gin or the vodka, we’ve gone through the aromatized or fortified wine. Here you are, you have a guest in front of you. You’re going to bring it home for us. What do you do to make that Martini, both to prepare it and then to put it in front of the guest? And that comes down to the garnish. And is there anything else you put alongside that drink? Because this is fantasy land. You can do whatever you want. Trevor, can I start with you? 

Trevor Easter

Yeah. Well, I just think Martinis always go well with food. So if there’s any way that I can either convince the person getting the Martini to pair it with food or vice versa, somebody who gets a steak or oysters, was said earlier, which is like my favorite thing of all time. Or caviar, we do constantly. It’s like put it with something else.

Another thing is, you know, we have a tendency to, we believe that people have a strong opinion about how they make their Martinis. It turns out. So, you know, when someone’s like, I’d like a Martini and they give you the open-ended, we usually say, how do you make yours? Assuming that they’re like, well, at home, and they want to tell you all about it. We won’t usually make the one they tell us, but we will kind of go a little bit off to the side. But for me, it’s a small glass. A thin-lipped glass is like super important and a very cold glass. And a sidecar on crushed ice, keeping it cold, where they can top themselves up. And salty or citrusy garnishes.

As a business owner, I see them as being something that needs to be cost-effective for the guests. So they can have more than one. And it needs to have a nice margin. And it needs to be something that they have to tell their friends about. You’ve got to go there. They do this thing. It is so cool. You know, for example, when it’s 100 degrees out, if your phone app, weather app says 100, the Martini is half off. So it’s like those are really fun ways to get people to explore it. And so I don’t know. That’s that’s our take. It’s like make it feel good. Make it cold constantly. I don’t want your 80 degree mitt warming up your Martini. So you get a small glass and you get extra on the side. That’s my big thing. 

Paul Clarke 

Right. Natasha, what about you? When you’ve got everything you need here to work with, how do you deliver that Martini to the guest and really nail it, make it something that they’re going to come back for? 

Natasha Bahrami 

I guess I’m going in a little different direction, but I know all will agree with it. Because that accompaniment is really actually having that conversation with the guest. I think the biggest importance to keep Martinis great is when somebody comes to you and actually has the initiative to say, I’m craving a Martini. Right. Or however they’re approaching you, taking that opportunity to just be enthusiastic and invite them into, as he was saying, like to answer their own question. Give you a vibe of what they’re going for at that moment and trying to hit it out of the park for them there. Because we get one chance to kind of really pull them in and really making sure we make that shine.

You can possibly make boring Martinis and that’s not helping the cause in any way. So really taking that opportunity and saying, oh my gosh, someone ordered a Martini and are allowing us to kind of lean in. So lean in. And it’s something that I learned at an early age when I fell into Martinis with a dirty Martini. And I approached the bar and it was an older gentleman at the bar and he had served me the most exquisite dirty Martini I’d ever had at my 22 years of age. Okay. Big drinker at this point. I said, oh my gosh, do you use a special olive juice? He goes, it’s gin and olive juice. And I go, you put gin in it? He just walks away at that point because he’s like, I’m just not tolerating this right now.

I wish I could meet him again and be like, you’ve literally created a movement. So that lean, if you actually lean into them, you can make that massive change. And I moved from, I went into my parents, we’re Persian and they pickle everything. I stole some now 18-year-old pickled pepper brine. And I started making dirty Martinis with an 18-year-old pickled pepper brine. It changed my life, right? So like those little things, like you’re going to get caviar in this and you’re having a whole entire new experience is what’s making Martinis exciting. So let’s lean in and do it. If they don’t like it, great. Throw it out. Do it again. Who cares? Like, let’s make them exciting. 

Paul Clarke 

Abigail, for you. Here you are. Make it land. Yeah. 

Abigail Gullo 

I have to say I agree with both y’all. Well, I love the opportunity that a Martini order gets us to interact with the guests. Any opportunity to interact with the guests is a win. You’re creating a conversation. You’re getting to know them better. They’re getting to know you. And it could really set you up for I’m so glad, at least for me, I know this still happens in other places where people show up with little baggies of blue cheese because they want their bartender to stuff olives. That’s why our olives have pits in them. They cannot be stuffed.

We work really hard on creating, like, beautiful Sicilian olives, and we do a marinated olive mix with a lot of citrus in it. That’s my grandmother’s recipe that is served on the side of our Martinis as well. And if you want to twist, it’s going to be trimmed. It’s going to be expressed. It’s going to be on the side of your glass, not in your glass. Because the moment that trim falls into a Martini, that bitter pith starts to affect the taste, like, within five seconds. So it’s very, we’re very careful about how we serve this. I also agree to a sidecar because it should be cold, and you should sip it. You should remember Dorothy Parker’s advice about how many Martinis you consume. And we also serve our teeny Martinis on Mondays with a side of Zapp’s potato chips here from New Orleans. 

Paul Clarke 

Nice. 

Abigail Gullo 

And a little ceramic bowl. So there’s something crunchy. There’s something salty. There’s something to eat with it. Yeah, we don’t have this. We’re just a bar. We don’t have a restaurant. So we’re a little limited as to our food offerings. I wish I could pair it with a steak. I wish I could pair it with a dozen oysters. But for now, we’re going to do it with chips and olives and just a really wonderful, expertly made Martini with exquisite ingredients. and really thoughtful hospitality. 

Paul Clarke 

That’s perfect. That’s perfect. We’re heading toward the exit here. Have we missed anything? Are there any final thoughts you’d like to share on Martini or the Martini lifestyle? 

Trevor Easter 

I want to I want to hear. Yeah, yeah. So I’m so interested because I’ve just met these two and clearly we have such similar ideology. Was that a no cheese in the Martini comment? Was that what that was? No blue cheese olives. 

Abigail Gullo 

Just saying I don’t want to like when I’m in the weed. 

Trevor Easter 

Yeah. 

Abigail Gullo 

Stop to stuff olives.

Trevor Easter 

Got it. Do you allow blue cheese olives stuffed olives into Martini? Is that like a like we don’t have those but I will. 

Abigail Gullo 

I found a purveyor that gives me beautiful blue cheese olives and so now I buy them. 

Trevor Easter 

Love it. 

Abigail Gullo 

I don’t have to stuff them and they don’t have to bring it in themselves. 

Trevor Easter 

Absolutely. Can you share who it is? Do they just make is it a commercial product or do they make it for you? 

Abigail Gullo 

It’s just it’s a commercial product. It’s a commercial product I buy through a purveyor. 

Trevor Easter 

Hit me up in the DMs. 

Abigail Gullo 

It got picked up by one of my liquor distributors. See. 

Trevor Easter 

Oh, love it. 

Abigail Gullo

All the small distributors are looking for how can we help these small bars that are opening up in small restaurants? Can we provide them with a high-quality grenadine? Can we provide them with high-quality olives, can we provide them with high-quality cherries? You know, this is they are giving people options now. This is that we’re in that stage of capitalism around the bar where we have options. You know, people still ask me if I make my own bitters. I said, why would I put people at risk and waste? So many people make exquisite bitters. I go shopping.

Trevor Easter 

Same reason I don’t play in the NBA. It’s like, that’s not my thing. That’s awesome. 

Abigail Gullo 

Did I make my own bitters? Yes.

Trevor Easter 

You know, same, same. Because there was like two options. You’re like, thank you, you know, Gary Regan for giving us another option. But yeah, you know, I think one of the things that we’re really falling in love with now is considering water as a really important ingredient. Obviously, we’ve always used filtered water or we heavily filter our ice machines, but we have started to Mr. Potato Head the water situation, especially now that we’re seeing the success, not only financially, but the guests are really interested in these freezer Martinis. And we’re like, okay, well, what is the water doing? Why isn’t it tomato water? And why isn’t it, you know, some other alternative?

And so that’s the thing I see the young bartenders on our team getting excited about is this kind of like code switching thing where they’re like, wait, hold on a minute. Let’s why not swap this out? If we’re going to bash this thing all the way out and store it, why use boring old water, you know? And I think that that might be a really fun way for people to riff, you know, mineral water is a great alternative. So anyways, there you go. Planted a seed. 

Paul Clarke 

Fantastic. 

Abigail Gullo 

I love it. 

Paul Clarke 

Natasha, any final thoughts? 

Natasha Bahrami 

To bring it all together, yes, snacks are fully accepted with Martinis and should be. If available, Martinis and snacks go very well together. Understanding aromatized and fortified wines are as important as understanding the range of gins and how they go together. And maybe just being okay that people who like Martinis are okay with a little bit more complexity. Maybe they’re ordering a Martini because they want more conversation. They want a conversation starter at the bar instead of like, I pointed at this drink that you somehow have batched and ready to go. I’m not against batching. None of these things are an issue, but like, I kind of want something that you made for me. So like, could you customize a Martini for me? 

Trevor Easter 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Natasha Bahrami 

Us kind of being okay with that. Yes, obviously, guests, please be aware when your team is in crazy in the weeds and you’re trying to have a conversation may not be the best time to do that. However, once you’re considerate of these things, starting a conversation with your bartender, you’re going to get so much enthusiasm out of them. 

Paul Clarke 

My goodness, this came together even better than I thought it would and I thought it was going to be amazing. Thanks to all of you for being a part of this podcast and for chatting with us about Martinis.

Abigail Gullo 

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Trevor Easter 

Why the hell weren’t we drinking Martinis for this?

Natasha Bahrami 

Thank you for having us, Paul.

Paul Clarke

I know. We should have had Martinis during this. That was an egregious oversight. 

[music]

Paul Clarke

You can find Abigail Gullo on Instagram at Abigail Gullo. Natasha Bahrami is on Instagram at TheGinGirl. And Trevor Easter is on Instagram at Photobraggins. We’ve got those links for you in this episode’s notes. If you haven’t seen the new issue of Imbibe yet, then make sure to pick up one or better yet, become a subscriber so you can get a new issue in your hands every time it comes out. We’ve got a link for you to subscribe in this episode’s notes. 

And that’s it for this episode. Subscribe to Radio Imbibe to keep up with all our future episodes. Head to imbibemagazine.com for lots more Martini coverage and for info on all kinds of other cocktails and drinks. Follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, threads, and Facebook for all our day-to-day coverage. And once more, if you’re not already a subscriber to the print and or digital issues of Imbibe, then let’s change that right now. Just follow the link in this episode’s notes and we’ll be happy to help you out. 

I’m Paul Clarke. This is Radio Imbibe. Catch you next time.