Why Is It so Hard to Get a Good Martini in Europe?

As in many cities, the cocktail scene is booming in Vilnius, Lithuania, where a growing number of bars are offering world-class mixed drinks, marking a dramatic change from just a decade or so ago. But for some visitors, finding a great Martini can still be a challenge.

Greta Skamaročiūtė, head bartender at Nomads Cocktail Bar in the city’s Old Town, says that several customers have come in with a story to tell. One American couple recently shared what happened when they tried to order their favorite drink elsewhere.

“They mentioned that they went to some other place and asked for a Martini, and the gentleman got a shot of vermouth and a shot of vodka,” she says. “They were quite disappointed with the serve.”

Happily, those travelers found what they wanted at Nomads, where the menu lists five variations on the gin Martini — Dry, Dirty, Gibson, Vesper, and Truffle — among other recipes. For Skamaročiūtė, one of the co-founders of the Baltic Bar Show, it really depends on where you go.

“If it’s a good cocktail bar, you’ll definitely get a good Martini,” she says. “But they’re not in every restaurant, not in every bar, and not on every corner. You have to look for a good place.”

That’s probably true for most drinks, but the Martini seems to be a special case. Today, great options for cocktails abound across Europe, and yet you’ll still find questions about the difficulty of finding a good Martini in online travel and cocktail forums, as well as personal essays from travel writers about how much Continental versions of the drink suck.

It’s not impossible to get a well-chilled, properly stirred combination of gin and vermouth, served up, in the Old World. But for a number of reasons — from brand and ingredient confusion to taste and flavor preferences that cross national borders — it’s still not as easy as it could be.

Different Flavors, Different Strengths

With her dual role as the host of her own cocktail classes and on “My Tiny Bottles,” a podcast and video series on spirits, Tammy Coxen naturally seeks out craft cocktail bars while traveling in Europe, including on a lengthy cross-continental jaunt this summer. One big takeaway? While there are several notable exceptions, Old World drink menus don’t seem to focus on the same “boozy stirred drinks” that fueled the cocktail renaissance in places like New York and San Francisco, and which still get plenty of love in the English-speaking cocktail world.

“When I go to a bar in Europe and I look at the menu, generally speaking, the drinks tend to be on the sweeter side, they tend to have a lot of sours,” she says. “You don’t often see a Martini on the menu.”

The idea that “cocktail” generally means “something fruity, sweet, and sour” seems to cover much of the E.U. at this point, with Martini-focused bars like Barcelona’s iconic Dry Martini being exceptions that prove the rule. Of course, the European continent also includes the U.K., where the Martini has a lengthy tradition, as well as plenty of contemporary buzz, with the Financial Times declaring the dirty version “London’s new It-girl drink” last month. Outside of the British Isles, however, drinkers in Europe seem to prefer very different flavor profiles.

Dieter Moeyaert and Shanna Delfosse are co-owners of Groot Vlaenderen in Bruges, which Gault-Millau recently named Belgium’s “cocktail bar of the year.” Moeyaert says that a classic Martini just isn’t what most customers are looking for.

“The bartenders know it’s a drink, but don’t know it in their bones, and aren’t really sure of the ins and outs of it the way they are with an Aperol Spritz, a Negroni, a Radler, a Picon-Bière, or even a Mojito. It’s just another drink, and not a particularly popular one.”

“I don’t think it’s in our vocabulary when it comes to drinks for the average European,” he says. “It’s definitely not a favorite. I think Europeans usually need a little bit of juice and sugar with their alcohol.” As he sees it, very popular drinks like the Aperol Spritz and the Negroni are “diametrically opposed” to the dry, briny character of a great Martini.

That might be a contemporary preference, but it matches up with history. David Wondrich, author of “The Comic Book History of the Cocktail,” among other titles, points out that Europe never had a multi-decade “Martini cult” the same way as the U.S. did in the mid-20th century. As such, the recipe functions as a kind of “dim memory,” rather than a widely shared cultural touchstone.

“The bartenders know it’s a drink, but don’t know it in their bones, and aren’t really sure of the ins and outs of it the way they are with an Aperol Spritz, a Negroni, a Radler, a Picon-Bière, or even a Mojito,” Wondrich says “It’s just another drink, and not a particularly popular one.” In his experience, modern European craft cocktail bars, century-old institutions, and large hotel bars generally make excellent Martinis. In other venues, the odds might be against you.

Moeyaert says that Groot Vlaenderen generally serves only about one classic Martini per day, usually to someone who is speaking English, not Dutch or French.

“I would say only people from the U.K. and Americans drink it,” he says. “Most Europeans stay away from it, because it’s pretty strong.”

This summer, Moeyaert and Delfosse traveled to the U.K., sampling great Martinis at storied specialty bars like Dukes.“The waft of the alcohol meets you in the lobby as you enter the bar,” he says. “It’s so strong, your day is finished if you have one.”

At Nomads, the relative strength of the Martini has even led to a new menu option. The bar’s five classic Martinis are all made with 60 ml (2.11 oz) of Tanqueray No. 10, which has a relatively brawny 47.3 percent ABV, served in a 6:1 ratio. However, every Martini can also be ordered in a “Tiny” portion, served at half the size, for exactly half the price.

“The main reason was educational, because of course, we noticed it’s not a very popular drink here,” Skamaročiūtė says. “We wanted to have a less intimidating way of drinking a Martini, with an option to try more than one without getting wasted, and without having regrets if you realize the drink is not for you and you just can’t finish it.”

What “Martini” Means

If the wrong taste profile and too much booze are two strikes against the Martini’s popularity in Europe, another might be the power of the Martini brand a.k.a. Martini & Rossi, as well as the widespread tradition of drinking vermouth on its own. Originally founded in Turin, Italy, the company’s vermouth has been a favorite standalone tipple in many European countries for over 150 years. Today, the one-word “Martini” logo is ubiquitous on beach umbrellas, awnings, menus, and table tents across the Continent. As such, if you ask for a Martini at a non-specialist bar, café, or restaurant in many cities, you’re very likely to get a chilled (but not super-cold) glass of Martini Extra Dry, ungarnished, with no other spirit. For a lot of people in Europe, the very word “Martini” means vermouth — not gin, vodka, or something in a V-shaped glass.

The strength of that brand even means that customers are confused about other contemporary drinks with Martini in the name, Delfosse notes.

“It’s definitely not a favorite. I think Europeans usually need a little bit of juice and sugar with their alcohol.”

“A lot of people ask, ‘Is there Martini vermouth in the Pornstar Martini?’” she says. With Groot Vlaenderen’s customers generally looking for “something fruity or more on the sweeter side,” that would be unwelcome, in contrast to the preferences she encountered while sampling Martinis in London this summer. “They like their brine in the U.K.”

In addition, there’s another hermeneutic angle to the Martini’s lack of appeal across Europe. For many, the strength of the drink, its long-term association with James Bond, and lore about the Martini-fueled Rat Pack all combine to cast the Martini in a macho light. By contrast, European cocktail culture can be seen as coming from a very different place.

Or, to quote Dril: This whole thing smacks of gender.

“Martinis in the U.S. were always male-coded, right? It’s men that went out for three-Martini lunches, not women,” Coxen says. “They’re very male-coded, whereas male-coded drinking in Europe is beer. I think that cocktails are more coded ‘women’ in Europe, still, than in North America.”

As such, Skamaročiūtė, Delfosse, and other women in the European drinks industry might be the ones who finally elevate the classic Martini in the Old World. Skamaročiūtė describes the drink as a kind of “final level” for drinkers, who start out by sampling various sweet-and-sour drinks. As an intermediate step, they might move on to the Negroni, whereby they start to appreciate bitterness.

“Then, after you try a lot of things, you can ask for a Martini and actually enjoy it,” she says. “You basically just develop your flavor palate for simpler flavors that are not as loud.”

Delfosse says that a future winter menu at Groot Vlaenderen will feature the Martini more prominently, including a version garnished with blue-cheese-stuffed olives. Her own preference is for a 7:1 ratio, with a dash of orange bitters and a twist.

An olive is acceptable, she says, but no brine, please.

“I love the Martini,” she says. “The dryer, the better.”

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