On gin.

Downingtown.

Excerpted from today's "Spirits of the Times", by Eric Asimov:

Before we discuss the findings, though, we need to clear up a little matter. It’s come to my attention that some people believe martinis are made with vodka. I hate to get snobbish about it, but a martini should be made with gin or it’s not a martini. Call it a vodkatini if you must, but not a martini. Gin and vodka have as much in common hierarchically as a president and a vice president. Vodka can fill in for gin from time to time and might even be given certain ceremonial duties of its own, but at important moments you need the real thing. Vodka generally makes a poor substitute for gin in a martini or any other gin cocktail.

The panel found common ground here. Each of us is partial to the classic martini made with gin, although Audrey was sensitive to the desires of her clientele.

“You have to revisit which generation is drinking the martini,” she said. “We might be classicists, but is the newer generation?”

Still, after perhaps 8 or 10 martinis, Audrey fessed up, referring at one point to “a generation lobotomized by vodka.”

Indeed, gin is more of a thinking person’s spirit.