By all the Gods if Olympus I need this. Lo-Fi Lush Hour no. 33, work your pagan magic! 
Today is a Martini day if ever there was. But we already did the Martini, didn’t we? Back 16 years ago in the first week of this shit? I say that was *a* Martini, but not *the* Martini, which is a mirage. So for Today’s Toast, let’s do another Martini. With clean hands, of course
Last time, we did a 3:1 Martini, 1940s style. So let’s flip ahead a few years to the early ‘50s, which liked ‘em a bit stiffer, what with the threat of nuclear destruction. So 5-1, like this amulet that Inhade made up in the ‘90s calls for.
Gin. If ever there’s a drink that calls for Beefeater or Boodles, it’s this. But I ain’t got those. For vaguely ‘50s style gins—strong, not too pungent—I’ve got these (as the LFLH goes forward, the bottles are gonna get weirder; I’ve got a lot of booze, but I’m no liquor store).
Fortunately I’ve got the proper dry vermouth, and a lemon twist. Ingredients completed.
Tools. I’m breaking out my largest mixing glass because this thing needs, as I believe Bernard DeVoto put it, “500 pounds of ice.”
So. 2 1/2 ounces gin. I’m going with this ancient bottle of barrel-aged Kensington because it’s the sort of thing that a pretentious bohemian aesthete such as myself would have inflicted on his guests back in 1952.
Half an ounce of NP.
Ice (oh yeah, there’s another tool). Crack a bunch and throw in a bunch whole. “Shit-ton” is the colloquialism you want to invoke.
Stir and stir again. Let that wrist roll and roll.
And, like loathing follows fear, straining follows stirring.
Snap that twist! But this time, let’s discard it, because ...
... then we can skewer a cocktail onion and make our Martini into a Gibson. (True story: in the early 80s, when I was trying to get a record contract, I swore that if my band became famous I would have a billboard on Sunset Strip endorsing Durkee’s Cocktail Onions.)
And there stands the glass. There stands the glass.
Today’s Toast is brought to you by B. D. Sea Fowl Guano. “Good Enough for a President.”
