Rant: If you don't know how to make the drink, just tell me...

[citygirl]

Agreed.

It's not an anti-Argentine comment. It's a bad bartender comment. If the bartender didn't know what a dry martini is - (although how any bartender wouldn't is shocking), he should have simply advised the customer. But never, never, never would it have sugar in it.

 

[MizzMarr]

Wow. How in the world would sending a salad back when you ordered a pizza be an example of expat snobbery? You're probably not going to complain when you get charged for a large margherita, either?

I'm thinking you're being a little too lax in your "You´re in another country, so play by this country´s rules" attitude. That's one of the silliest things I've heard anybody say in a very long time.

Agree that this is a simple criticism of bad bartending, not Argentina, end of story. I could come up with analogies for days.

 

[A&A]

I have worked in bars on 3 separate continents, including this one (in BsAs), and a DRY MARTINI, is made the same way everywhere.

Katherine you are just flat wrong! It is not an opinion issue. It is a fact.

Now if the argument was they gave me gin instead of vodka, you could argue that it was a local preference due to the British influence or something. But with sugar, it is just not a dry martini. Drinks are more like chemical formulas. It is as if I asked for bleach and you handed me something with ammonia. It's a cleaner but it is not bleach.

 

[muppditt]

​

A fine example of expat snobbery.



And another.

You´re in another country, so play by this country´s rules. If everything has sugar in it, well, then, tough luck. These threads are so ridiculous

Ridiculous, yes. Mostly because of your replies.

 

[quierobagel]

Is just a matter of going to the right place!

I'm sorry, KatherineAnn, but while I agree that there is room to adapt a lot of time to the local culture, make concessions to things being done differently, and loosen up in general, a dry martini is a dry martini without a lot of room for interpretation. This is why there are bartending schools and bar guides that tell how to mix a drink and in what quantities. This is why, generally speaking, the world over if you walk into a bar and order a "dry vodka martini" you'll be served a glass filled with vodka and vermouth in a more or less 5:1 ratio. I don't think that it's right that in order to "cater" to the tastes of the Argentines that a timeless recipe should be bastardized by putting sugar in it. If that's how Argies like their martinis, fine, but it shouldn't be called a dry martini.

If someone gave you a sugar cookie and called it an onion bagel, would you just say, "huh, I guess this is how they make onion bagels in Argentina"? No, you'd most likely say, "they don't know what they are talking about and I can't believe I just got conned into paying 50 pesos for a dozen sugar cookies. Now what am I going to do with all this lox and cream cheese?" My bet is that you don't put it on the sugar cookie and concede to local interpretation.

 

[NikBaires]

Only bar I know that doesn't butcher drinks is the bar in my house

 

[PhilipDT]

Only bar I know that doesn't butcher drinks is the bar in my house

I've found this true too, which is sad cause i'm not much of a bartender. My drinks aren't that great but at least they're not "butchered".

 

[jenh]

For future reference... L'Abeille makes a decent gin martini. V. dry.

 

[El_Jameso]

Agreed, sugar in a Martini is equivalent to blasphemy.

But then again, so is vodka.


Does anybody know if there's a similar, local drink which maybe OP's bartender confused it with? Or, do Portenos just have a proclivity for sweet cocktails? Did he serve it to you with a straw?

 

[El_Jameso]

ps Katherine, if it was consistently a custom to include sugar in a Martini round here, there might be an argument for a bit of cultural relativism. But, I understand from the thread that this guy was just a one-off joker who didn't know what he was doing. The issue wasn't so much the sugar as the ignorance.