Surrealist film maker Luis Buñuel was a serious Martini aficionado. In the classic cocktail scene in ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ we hear that “a classic cone-shaped glass is best” and that “a Dry Martini should be sipped like champagne.” Buñuel liked them very cold and he liked them very dry. In his autobiography ‘My Last Sigh’ he waxes lyrical and gives his perfect recipe. Nothing more needs be said.
“Connoisseurs who like their Martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin. At a certain period in America it was said that the making of a Dry Martini should resemble the Immaculate Conception, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas once noted, the generative power of the Holy Ghost pierced the Virgin’s hymen “like a ray of sunlight through a window – leaving it unbroken.”
“The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients – glasses, gin, and shaker – in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don’t take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Stir it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, stir it again, and serve.”