"Shaken, not stirred" is a catchphrase of Ian Fleming's fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond and describes his preference for the preparation of his martini cocktail. Besides, H. L. Mencken calls Martini "the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet", and E. B. White calls it "the elixir of quietude". Made with gin and vermouth and garnished with an olive or a lemon twist, this beverage has been and will continue to be an iconic stalwart of the cocktail lexicon.

The history of Dry Martini is more than slightly murky.

One version that is believed by the public points to the town of Martinez, California, where historians and town inhabitants alike claim the drink was invented during the Gold Rush. A miner from the Sierra Nevada struck it rich, and he decided to celebrate his good fortune at a local bar. The miner asked for the house special, but the bar was out of the ingredients, so the creative bartender concocted another beverage made from ingredients he had on hand (gin, vermouth, bitters, maraschino liqueur, and a slice of lemon), and named it "Martinez special", which was heavier on vermouth than gin.

In 1886, the term "Martini" began to appear, but its composition was not significantly different from Martinez's. Published in 1888, Harry Johnson's New and Improved Bartender's Manual was the first bartending book that recorded the recipe for Martini. Then in the revised edition published in 1900, Margurite, a cocktail composed of Plymouth Gin, French Vermouth, and orange bitters, was recorded for the first time, which marked the substantial change of Martini from sweet to dry.

The Dry Martini most likely appeared with the emergence of the London Dry Gin style and was helped by Martini & Rossi running newspaper advertisements in the U.S. towards the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century for their recently launched Dry Martini vermouth with the strapline "It's not a Martini unless you use Martine".

The evolution of the drink is influenced by some of the greatest statesmen, writers, businessmen, and movie stars of the 20th century.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The great statesman was at his best after a stiff drink, which probably explains why he carried a bespoke "martini kit" on every local and foreign trip. At the Tehran Conference in 1943, this blended drink was provided by the President for Joseph Stalin. Stalin sampled his first Martini and noted that it was "cold on the stomach", but not unpleasant. Roosevelt's recipe includes 2 parts gin, 1 part vermouth, 1 teaspoon olive brine, lemon twist, and cocktail olive - rub the lemon twist around the rim of a chilled cocktail glass and discard the peel; combine gin, vermouth, and olive brine in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice and shake well; strain into a chilled glass and garnish with olive.

Ernest Miller Hemingway

The drinking habits of Ernest Miller Hemingway are legendary. As we all know, most of Hemingway's books contain details of drinking, and the author often used sensations brought about by certain cocktails to express the moods of his characters. Though he seems to love drinking just about anything, his stand-by cocktail is allegedly a Dry Martini. Frederic Henry, the protagonist in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, may have expressed the author's feelings about the cocktail best: "I had never tasted anything so cool and clean. They made me feel civilized." It is said that Hemingway prefers his cocktails icy-cold and reportedly has a clever hack for making "the coldest martini in the world."

Clark Gable

The man who brought dashing, rugged masculinity to Hollywood's Golden Age is similarly cavalier when it comes to his drinks. In Teacher's Pet, a romantic comedy with Doris Day, the hard-boiled newspaper editor played by Clark Gable shows himself to be quite resourceful in an unfamiliar kitchen. He robs an ice pack or ice cubes to mix a Martini. For vermouth, he merely shakes a bottle of Noilly Prat and rubs the wet cork along the rim of the mixing glass, then strains the drink through his fingers.

In addition to those mentioned above, many others favor this drink as well, such as Sir Winston Churchill, Alfred Hitchcock, Ian Fleming, Queen Elizabeth II, and so on.

During Prohibition, people started adding ingredients that weren't typically mixed with spirits, such as sugar, to drinks. Essentially, liquor needed to be diluted so that if a bust were eminent, speakeasy-goers could sling their drink and duck out. Therefore, salons and hotel bars where there were only gentlemen went bankrupt during Prohibition, replaced by a new cocktail culture that women and men could drink together.

Martini is by no means an ordinary cocktail. The pure and clear Martini is the haven, the last bastion of the imperfect world. For those white-collar workers – from advertising executives to public relations staff, from editors to illustrators, from engineers to architects to intellectuals who use their skills to achieve goals they often don't believe in - Martini means their ideals that have not been defiled.

As long as people do not return to the original life of pastoralism, the shine of Martini, the king of cocktail, will never fade.