the.com/martini

means A cocktail of gin (or vodka) and dry vermouth, stirred or shaken with ice, strained into a stemmed conical glass, and garnished with an olive or a twist of lemon.

from The name's true source is genuinely murky, which hasn't stopped a crowd of legends from claiming it. One popular story credits the town of Martinez, California, where a Gold Rush bartender supposedly mixed an early version; another points to the Italian vermouth maker Martini & Rossi, whose name graced countless bottles. A third tale invents a New York bartender named Martini di Arma di Taggia. The honest answer is that the word surfaces in print in the late 19th century, likely as a riff on an older sweet drink called the 'Martinez,' and the cleanest line of descent runs from that earlier cocktail to the dry, gin-forward icon we now know.