HEAD Society Martini March

HEAD Society Martini March

Saturday, November 5, 2011

3pm

The cocktail is an American creation. Many of these tasty concoctions have roots right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Pisco Punch, Mai Tai and the Martini are all natives. Perhaps the most famous is the Martini. New York and San Francisco both claim to be the birthplace of this drink but little Martinez is the rightful home to this cocktail classic.

Following the California gold rush (sometime between 1862 and 1874), a miner came into Julio Richelieu’s saloon in Martinez. To celebrate his new found wealth, he ordered champagne. None was available but Julio offered him “something better” a “Martinez Special”.

There are two versions of the original recipe:

#1) 4 parts Old Tom Gin (which had a strong juniper flavor), 1 part sweet vermouth, 1 part bitters and cherry elixir.

#2) 2 parts gin, 1 part vermouth, a dash of orange bitters.

Whichever recipe the original followed, the customer loved the drink and ordered a round for the house!

The recipe was published in O.H. Bryon’s 1884 Modern Bartender’s Guide. Three years later Professor Jerry Thomas published it in The Bon Vivant’s Companion: Or How to Mix Drinks. Thomas was perhaps America’s first celebrity bartender. He, of course, claimed credit for the drink while traveling through Martinez.

It is said that the name changed from Martinez to Martini since the “z” was too hard to pronounce after drinking a few.

Julio’s original saloon was at 414 Ferry St. at Marina Vista. For many years it was Amato’s restaurant. Today it is the Royal Thai restaurant. The Royal Thai lacks a full bar so the HEAD Hunters’ recon mission found an appropriate substitute just down a block down at the Ferry Street Station. After close examination, it proved to be a martini-rich environment.

The Ferry Street Station is located at 600 Ferry Street in Martinez. It’s in the historic McMahon-Telfer Building which was built in 1914. It replaced the Curry Livery Stable and Social Hall that burned in 1904. The Royal Theatre was upstairs and the upper hall was used for prize fight arenas, dances and traveling shows. According to the crack HEAD Research team there’s been a bar on this block since the 1890s.

Martinez History Timeline

Since time and memorial, the  Karkin peoples lived and thrived in this area.

1824 – The area becomes part of a 17,000 acre land grant awarded to Don Ygnacio Martinez for services rendered to the Royal Spanish and Mexican armies.

1847 – General Mariano Vallejo grants permission for Dr. Robert Semple, a dentist and Lieutenant in the Bear Flag Revolt, to operate a ferry across the Carquinez Straight to Benicia.

1849 – A town springs up near the ferry to serve gold seekers heading for the Mother Lode. It’s named Martinez.

1851 – The California legislature recognizes Martinez as the first town in the District of Contra Costa (later Contra Costa County).

1869 – Dr. John Strentzel (later John Muir’s father-in-law) develops a method for keeping pears fresh when shipped long distances by rail.

1870 – Italian and Portuguese immigrants arrive in Martinez. A vineyards are planted and fishing industry is born.

1862 -1874 – The Martini is born! Bartender Julio Richelieo makes the first “Martinez Special”.

1877 – The Trans-Continental Railroad arrives in Martinez.

1879 – The Christian Brothers open a school and plant a vineyard.

1880 – John Muir marries Louisa Strentzel in Martinez.

1882 – 12 fish canneries now operate in Martinez.

1899 – The Santa Fe Railroad arrives in Martinez.

1901 – Martinez establishes an 11pm closing time for town saloons.

1914 – Joe DiMaggio, Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper, is born in Martinez.

1915 – Shell Oil opens a refinery.

1930 – A railroad bridge across the Carquinez Straight is completed.

1957 – Martinez’s fishing industry comes to an end as Sacramento River and Delta waters are closed to commercial fishing.

1962 – Ferry service from Martinez to Benica (that started in 1847) is discontinued as a highway bridge is completed.

MARTINEZ MARTINI MARCH

Yesterday, El Sueno and I got up at the crack of 9:00 and tossed around ideas on what to do, when to do it and, most importantly, what to eat when we were doing it…Ok, now that sounds dirty, but you get what I mean. After all, you are a HEAD Society member!

Anyway, we decided it was a perfect day to pre-Martini the November 5 trail (also, I needed to make a trip to the teacher store to San Leandro which is about halfway there and it was greener to combine trips…”Greener? Why not take the train?” you ask, “It goes right to downtown Martinez!” To which we reply, “We checked into that, but Amtrak costs $18 per person EACH WAY to go from Fremont to Martinez and we love all you HEAD Trippers, but that’s a LOT of cash to drop on an investigational adventure! That said, we’ll be happy to meet you at the train station on the actual Martini Day. Martinez is a tiny town and it’s only a short walk from anywhere to anywhere else there. Carpooling is also an option…) So we hopped in the car and headed north.

An hour (or so) later, we arrived in the teeny, tiny town of Martinez. In only a minute we found that the home of the original Martini, now a Thai restaurant, was closed on Sundays. On peeking through the window, we noticed that there is not a full bar there, so we were unlikely to get Martinis with our pad thai. We started scouting the street for substitute bars.

There were two that we thought might fit the bill until we heard crashing and yelling sounds coming out of one (might’ve just been a dropped tray, might have been a homicide, we didn’t wait for details.) There were two sweaty guys in motorcycle leathers having a political discussion in front of the other one. They raised some good points, but they were really sweaty and we didn’t want to go there. So we chose the Ferry Street Station for our Martinez Martinis. It meets out stringent requirements for HEAD appropriateness. It has a full bar, beer, wine, a clean bathroom and bar food. Plus there are big flat screen TVs so those who choose to do so can sit in the bar enjoying Martinis, beer and college football while the rest of us walk around and peruse the myriad…

ANTIQUE SHOPS that line all the adjacent streets! Ladies! This is gonna be fun! Clear your calendars (and your credit card bills) I smell a shopping trip. And a Head Trip. Oooh – a martini-fueled shopping trip…See you on the 5^th!