Martini is a brand of Italian drinks, named after the Martini & Rossi Distilleria Nazionale
di Spirito di Vino, in Turin.
The drink is a vermouth, which is an aromatized, fortified wine flavored with various botanicals
(roots, barks, flowers, seeds, herbs, and spices) and sometimes colored.
Clemente Michel, Carlo Re, Carlo Agnelli and Eligio Baudino started the company in 1847,
as a vermouth bottling plant in Pessione.
A few years later Alessandro Martini joined the team, becoming the director in 1863 along
with Teofilo Sola and Luigi Rossi (who was the inventor of a vermouth).
In 1863 they changed the company name to Martini, Sola & Cia.
They started exporting bottles of vermouth around the world.
New York city was given its first crates in 1867.
At the time the firm was awarded several prizes, which are still recorded on the bottles: Dublin
(1865), Paris (1867 and 1878), Vienna (1873) and Philadelphia (1876).
Just thirty years after its creation, Martini was available in many parts of the world.
In 1879 the Sola family sold its interests to the remaining partners, who renamed the
company Martini & Rossi, as it stands today.
In 1892 the Martini business was taken over by Rossi's four sons; control passed to his
grandsons in 1930.
In 1929 the Martini Ball & Bar logo was registered for the first time.
Restructuring was carried out in 1977 resulting in the creation of the General Beverage Corporation.
In 1992 Martini & Rossi merged with Bacardi.
“Martini is the world's fourth most powerful ‘spirit’ brand” according to a survey in 2006.
The brand may have given the American martini vermouth and gin cocktail its name (an early
recipe for which is known from 1888), though other speculations on the cocktail's etymology exist.
By 1922 the martini cocktail reached its most recognizable form in which London dry gin
and dry vermouth are combined at a ratio of 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes,
with the optional addition of orange or aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass.
Over time the generally expected garnish became the drinker's choice of a green olive or a
twist of lemon peel.
By the Roaring Twenties, it became a common drink order.
Over the course of the 20th century, the amount of vermouth steadily dropped.
During the 1930s the ratio was 3:1 (gin to vermouth), and during the 1940s the ratio
was 4:1.
During the latter part of the 20th century, 6:1, 8:1, 12:1, 15:1 or even 50:1 or 100:1
Martinis became considered the norm.
During Prohibition in the United States, during the mid-20th century, the relative ease of
illegal gin manufacture led to the martini's rise as the locally predominant cocktail.
With the repeal of Prohibition, and the ready availability of quality gin, the drink became
progressively drier.
In the 1970s and '80s, the martini came to be seen as old-fashioned and was replaced
by more intricate cocktails and wine spritzers, but the mid-1990s saw a resurgence in the
drink and numerous new versions.
Some newer drinks include the word "martini" or the suffix "-tini" in the name (e.g., appletini,
peach martini, chocolate martini, Espresso Martini).
These are so named because they are served in a martini cocktail glass.
Generally containing vodka, they share little in common with the martini.