3 parts turpentine...

Madison.

While watching North By Northwest last night, I was struck by a minor little detail. When Roger (Cary Grant) sits down in the dining car, he orders a Gibson before his entree arrives.

A Gibson, of course, is a martini with a pickled onion instead of an olive. My preferred ratio: 3 parts gin, 1 part dry vermouth. I like Hendrick's. If you prefer sweet vermouth, add a strip of orange zest as garnish.

The thing is, when his drink arrives, it's tiny. By today's standards. An ounce or so, by the looks of it, as though he's been brought a little cordial by mistake. But this is the way it used to be, in the golden age of cocktails, before the surging popularity of chocolate-based "martinis" and drinks served in stemmed goldfish bowls. Back in the day when bartenders created their own bitters from angostura and gentian root, among other things, and when people ordered Sidecars and Singapore Slings without being pretentiously retro.

Little drinks that tasted good, so you could have a drink before, and after, dinner without making it impossible to operate heavy machinery later that evening. Of course, those were the days before 16% ABV (and up) New World wines, so you could reasonably share a bottle with a date for dinner without getting hammered. I love the jammy, intense wines from California and Australia, but I no longer pretend I can drive to dinner and home again. I just call a taxi and consider it cheap insurance.

As for drinks, though, I do prefer the martini to the Gibson. Pickled onions notwithstanding, as delicious as they might be. There's just something to the combination of richness and brininess that comes with a good olive that complements the dry martini so well, that makes the last dregs of the drink half-martini, half-olive and all-wonderful. The only difficult part is that all the best olives come with pits, which makes 'em a bear to skewer with a toothpick. I've got some olives flavored with fennel and orange in the fridge, and they're just spectacular.

Not for the faint of stomach, though. Then again, neither is a good gin.

"Paint thinner," my dad calls it.