Martini, Straight Up: The Classic American Cocktail

In this engaging look at the classic cocktail, Lowell Edmunds traces the history of the Martini back to its American origins in the nineteenth century. Exploring literary and dramatic works as well as newspapers, magazines, cartoons, bartenders' manuals, distillery brochures, and other documents of popular culture, Edmunds finds in the Martini's image the same ambiguities that characterize American life.