Astoria Oxley cocktail
From the Classic Hotel Cocktail list [at JackKnife PDX] we tried the Astoria Oxley cocktail, a riff on the original Astoria, which was essentially a "classic" dry martini.
Back in the glory days of the Astor this was one of the staple drinks, only one of many martini variations. The touch of orange bitters has since fallen out of favor in "dry martinis" nowadays; that's a shame, because those bitters make a significant and tasty difference.
Here the essential gin-ness of the martini is underscored with the knife-sharp Oxley gin*, only slightly restrained by the the relatively soft dry Italian dry vermouth from Martini & Rossi. As with any well-made dry martini, this is bracing and teeth chilling. The rich, cutting herbaceousness of the gin, softened slightly by the florality of the vermouth, is tangy and citrus-fruity from the drops of orange bitters.
*A note on the Oxley gin: Most gins are either made through re-distilling neutral spirits with botanicals. Others, usually less expensive, are made through simply adding flavor essences (called compounding) to neutral alcohol. Oxley gin, however, is that rare gin made a third way, and currently the only commercial one on the market, that of vacuum distilling gin, where the alcohol is separated from the constituent liquids under a pressure vacuum. It's an expensive way to distill, but it certainly does accentuate the clarity and precision of the botanical ingredients in the gin.
