Happy Birthday, Mom

Marguerite Barrett
Contributing Writer

Today is my mother’s birthday, and in addition to wishing her a happy birthday, I am also gifting her with six large bottles of Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth.

Not your standard birthday gift, I’ll grant you, but for my mother, who “came of age” in 1950′s America, a great martini is a thing of beauty – not to be trifled with.   To make a great martini, you need great gin and dry vermouth – and for decades the only choice for serious martini drinkers has been Noilly Prat – the king (le roi?) of dry vermouth.  I guarantee you, those martinis they are downing in Mad Men?  They’re all made with Noilly Prat. 

Unfortunately, Noilly Prat announced earlier this year that they are “changing formulas” – abandoning the dry formula favored by American Martini connoisseurs (like my mother) in favor of the sweeter European-style “original formula.”  

Seriously.  

This is akin to the “New Coke” debacle of the 1980s.   

So make room in the pantry, we’re stocking up!   Happy Birthday, Mom.

This entry was posted on April 7, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under birthday celebrations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.