The History of the Martini in San Francisco

With no definitive records to trace its narrative, tales about who really created the martini abound. One story goes that a German musician named John Paul Aegius Schwartgendorf moved to France in 1758 and promptly changed his name to Jean Paul Aegide Martini. While there, he enjoyed a mixed drink of gin and white wine, which soon became known as the “Martini.” Then there’s the theory that Manhattan bartender Martini di Arma di Taggia invented the drink in 1911 for billionaire John D. Rockefeller. The East Bay city of Martinez also has its own origin anecdote—it involves a miner en route to San Francisco and a saloon that once existed along the community’s Alhambra Avenue.

However, it’s San Francisco’s Occidental Hotel (now the Galleria Park Hotel) that retains one of the most popular martini origin stories. It dates back to sometime in the late 1850s or early 1860s, when SF was a booming port city of saloons and bars welcoming an influx of miners and visitors. One of these miners stopped into the Occidental and happened upon “Professor” Jerry Thomas, who’s often considered the “father of modern mixology.”The miner placed down a gold nugget and asked Thomas to mix him up something unique. The result: a cocktail of Old Tom (sweetened) gin, vermouth, bitters, and maraschino that the legendary bartender called the “Martinez,” in honor of the miner’s destination.

This earlier, much sweeter precursor to the martini first appeared in print in the 1884 O.H. Byron's guide, The Modern Bartender, where the author described it as the “Martinez,” a version of the Manhattan made with French vermouth, Angostura bitters and gum syrup gin. Thomas then included a rendition of the Martinez in an updated version of his own Bar-Tenders Guide, which he published in 1887. Still, it wasn’t until 1927 when the story of how Thomas came up with the cocktail appeared in print—as part of a profile for American Mercury magazine—that the tale cemented itself in minds everywhere.

Over the years, the drink continuously evolved. As tastes started shifting in the early 20th century, bartenders began swapping out the sweet gin and vermouth for dryer components, and the “martini” as we know it was born. At the same time, its popularity ebbed and flowed. Though a sought-after beverage during the Gilded Age, martinis took a back seat until the 1950s and ‘60s, when indulgent “three-martini lunches,” which began along Manhattan’s Madison Avenue, and James Bond’s penchant for martinis “shaken not stirred” became part of the common lexicon.

San Francisco's own thriving cocktail scene has also helped this classic cocktail to endure, with bartenders serving it up in a myriad of ways: substituting vodka for gin, incorporating olive brine for a “dirty” version, adding crème de cacao and half-and-half to create chocolate martinis and making “appletinis” with green apple liqueur. The city continues to shape the world cocktail scene even further, with homegrown spirits like Junipero Gin. which led the birth of the American craft cocktail scene in 1996, and San Francisco Distilling Co., resulting in drinks that are even more specialized.

Smooth, sophisticated and adaptable, martini cocktails have withstood the test of time. And like most good things, their story is inextricably linked with San Francisco.

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