The fruity martini’s colorful comeback

Forget performative males let s talk about performative drinking If you ve opened Instagram anytime in the past two years you ve perhaps noticed that the martini has taken over And not only is the drink everywhere it has gone technicolor What was once a drink associated with old-money restraint and a hint of snobbery has become a rainbow of bright lychee jewel-toned berries neon passionfruit and whatever shades of pink orange and green just scream to be taken a picture of Everywhere you look there s a fruity martini the cocktail du jour that somehow feels retro modern ironic sincere and reliably photo-ready One part s nostalgia one part algorithmic aesthetics one part cultural palate shift The martini is having a renaissance for sure But the fruity martini That s a full-blown cultural moment Related French food finds its cool The s are back with a vengeance Low-rise jeans frosty lip gloss baguette bags fur boots the whole Y K closet has been ripped open and dumped all over TikTok Gen-Z has been single-handedly keeping the eBay reseller region alive And now that drinks trends are starting to catch up to fashion the Cosmo s younger more phone-eats-first cousins have followed Sabrina Carpenter the Carrie Bradshaw of TikTok-era pop stardom in recent months announced that if she were a cocktail she d be a Pornstar Martini the passionfruit-vanilla martini typically served with a sidecar of prosecco This might ve just been a cheeky nod to Carpenter s hyper-feminine sexual and witty music style but there is figures backing up the Pornstar Martini s rise According to Yelp searches for the Pornstar martini are up and passionfruit martini is up compared to last year Want more great food writing and recipes Sign up for Salon s free food newsletter The Bite It s not quite Carrie s iconic Cosmopolitan but it fits It s fruitier a little exotic a little wilder It reflects exactly where we are a generation unafraid to play nostalgic for an era we didn t live through but desperately want to recreate And while particular bartenders might argue that none of these drinks are truly martinis and they re not wrong the truth is that fruity martinis sweeping back into mainstream drinking beliefs reveal the shifting priorities of modern drinkers aesthetic appeal algorithmic performance nostalgia and approachability The First Wave and the revival The martini has gone through various phases over its long life veteran drinks journalist and cocktail expert Robert Simonson tells me There was a period in the s and the early s where anything you put in a martini glass was called a martini This is the spiritual birthplace of the fruity martini the era of the Appletini Watermelon Martini Chocolate Martini basically any flavor or color you could imagine bartenders were making a martini out of it It was more about the concept of drinking a cocktail as opposed to adhering to selected classical recipe of what a martini was Simonson says Purists were understandably horrified The purists they get cranky about this you know and say that it s supposed to be gin and vermouth and that s all a martini should be But it didn t matter Young people of that era demanded something youthful colorful sweet something you d want to hold on a dance floor under club lights We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in the modern day to backing Salon s progressive journalism Young people back then they didn t want to drink like their parents So if their parents were drinking a dry martini at home or at the club they needed to try something different They needed something more youthful Simonson says Majority of of these drinks were served in clubs and discotheques they were brightly colored If you re at a discotheque you don t want a glass of brown liquor The fruity martini wasn t a mistake of the s It was a feature Then came the mid-aughts cocktail renaissance speakeasy revival vest-wearing bartenders the return of obscure bitters the emergence of the cocktail-as-craft In the mid-aughts the cocktail revival began Simonson explains and a lot of bartenders and bars and cocktail bars started bringing back classic cocktails trying to make them accurately as they were made when they were invented in the pre-Prohibition days Suddenly the Appletini was embarrassing The Lychee Martini was gauche The Chocolate Martini was a punchline whispered in dark bars lit by Edison bulbs Bartenders reclaimed the martini refused to make its sugary variants and insisted on precision They started making regular martinis and these new bars would refuse to make the fruity or sweet martinis because they requested to show Americans what cocktails were once and what they could be But like all things in cocktail custom the pendulum swung back Fruity martini In the past limited years because the martini has become so popular with people of all ages Simonson says a lot of bartenders and bars felt compelled to yet again experiment Ironically this inevitably brought them back to the martinis of the s You could argue that the first viral example of this experimentation was the espresso martini whose rise in popularity coincided with the expansion of the coffee liquor territory But bartenders didn t stop there they traded in those other fruity sugary fluorescent liqueurs for real ingredients They knew how to make a martini that could taste like green apple but didn t use particular synthetic chemical green apple pucker liqueur he says They would use real apple juice or clarified apple juice or they would use an eau de vie from Europe Simonson explained bars like Milady s in New York have done a great job reintroducing their version of a craft Appletini made with fresh fruit and professional technique Multiple lychee martinis are now made with real lychee the nut the syrup clarified juice or even house-fermented fruit We re getting back to where we were the s Simonson says but it s not quite the bad old days because these are being made with quality ingredients so they re much closer to martinis than the cocktails of the s This is Fruity Martini a renaissance built on nostalgia but fortified with skill There s consistently a limited on every list you can perpetually tell which cocktails were created for social media Simonson sees the resurgence as partly generational partly emotional and partly aesthetic When you got on the other side of COVID he says people stopped being so interested in the history behind the cocktail They just longed to have fun And nothing says fun like a neon-pink drink that photographs beautifully It s the Cosmo effect he continues Anytime anyone sees a Cosmo it s so pretty more people order Cosmos People like eye-catching things And also there s social media these drinks look very good on Instagram In other words the fruity martini is not just a drink it s an aesthetic object Bars know this They must Definitely it has affected the bar Simonson says If they want to stay in business they have to design their cocktail list with a insufficient eye-catching ones There s dependably a minimal on every list you can constantly tell which cocktails were created for social media We live in a time where dishes and drinks are engineered not completely to taste good but to be photographed well bright colors dramatic garnishes thought-provoking silhouettes It s performative food and the fruity martini sits right in the center Gen Z meets the martini Of module no conversation about fruity martinis is complete without addressing the generational elephant in the room the idea that Gen-Z drinks less You ve possibly seen the headlines we re sober-curious we prefer THC-infused drinks we re health-conscious we re a no low alcohol generation As a Gen Z-er please point me in the direction of all these sober twenty-somethings because I have yet to meet them Still the perception that younger Americans are stepping back from alcohol is everywhere and it influences the kinds of drinks that become popular The whole reason we have no ABV and low ABV cocktails is because of the younger generation Simonson says And fruity martinis fit perfectly into this cultural moment drinks that feel like cocktails but don t taste aggressively alcoholic Alicia Kennedy a food and practices writer sees it the same way It s something that gives you the feeling of a cocktail while being a little bit juicier she says It s just about feeling It s the same logic behind the espresso martini you can justify a three-cocktail lunch if you tell yourself you re mostly drinking coffee or fruit not the alcohol-mixed-with-alcohol feeling you get from a classic martini Are fruity martinis even martinis Kennedy admits she has to stop herself from being snobbish about the definition She s a martini drinker but she recognizes that not everyone has the constitution for it I just have to constantly remind myself to not be a snob about it she says Because everyone is using the word martini to describe things that are basically like I don t know tiki drinks She s right A lychee martini isn t a martini A Pornstar isn t a martini Majority fruity martinis are truly daiquiri variations in pointy glasses It s all about the glassware right Kennedy says It s because they re served in a pointy glass or a coupe that we re calling them martinis The name is branding The glass is branding These drinks function as martinis socially even if they have nothing in common with gin and vermouth Martinis are really strong They re very very boozy They re a drinkers drink says Kennedy So to bring fruity stuff back it s also part of like martinis came back espresso martinis came back There s just this interest in reinvigorating people s relationship to cocktails For drinks writer Dave Infante the return of sweet photogenic drinks fits into a much older story about American drinking habits we like sweet stuff A lot It requires a fairly mature palette to enjoy a dry gin martini That s not to say that numerous Americans don t have mature palettes they certainly do But what plays well here tends to be more fruity more sweet more straightforward In October he wrote a piece for his newsletter Fingers all about what he calls the infantilization of the American drinker His article more so explored products like cereal-flavored craft beers and dessert-inspired hard liquors but he says the two concepts are related There is a connection between what he calls off-premise stunt gimmicks and the return of martini variations sweeter flavors make people feel less like they re drinking alcohol even if it s the same ABV as any other drink I think the American palate for years leaned toward sweet all the way back to Prohibition and its repeal he says During that era people were literally masking the taste of poor-quality alcohol with sugar It s like freshmen in college cutting the cheapest vodka they can find with orange juice This established a precedent in American drinking custom sweetness is comforting approachable safer Bitter boozy drinks require conditioning These cocktails can be situated on that spectrum Infante says It requires a fairly mature palette to enjoy a dry gin martini That s not to say that multiple Americans don t have mature palettes they certainly do But what plays well here tends to be more fruity more sweet more straightforward So fruity martinis aren t necessarily childish they re entirely familiar They align with long-standing American taste preferences ones that are resurfacing in a moment of maximal nostalgia The social media machine behind the martini If the s brought fruity martinis into clubs social media brought them to every bar in America polished staged and algorithmically optimized Social media is the way cocktail bartenders especially think about building menus Infante says Drinks must be delicious yes But they must also perform online There s enormous pressure to develop drinks that are both good to drink but also play well on social media for promotional purposes This isn t just anecdotal He hears it constantly in his reporting Bartenders now have to ask questions like Will it photograph well Does the garnish stand out on camera Will the color pop in a TikTok pan shot Can it go viral Will people order it for the vibe rather than the flavor That changes the R D process he says Now there s this added consideration of well is it going to work for social and if not is there really still a point to it For countless bars the answer is no If it won t go viral it won t go on the menu Infante points out that this isn t fully measurable no one can directly link Instagram views to bar sales but the cultural influence is undeniable The espresso martini didn t just come back it became the summer soundtrack The Negroni Sbagliato with Prosecco That was practically a TikTok campaign Fruity martinis tap perfectly into this landscape bright recognizable playful and ideal for filming That mentioned not everyone loves where this is going Kennedy is blunt about her concerns I do worry we re in a moment where it s just too performative for social media she says Nothing feels authentic about it She sees bartenders less empowered to experiment or use technique and more focused on giving people what they expect to see online It just started to be so much of the same everywhere she explains It s a flattening The fruity martini revival exists in this tension bartenders want creative freedom but the area wants reliable aesthetics She isn t the only one who feels this shift Several bartenders now learn only a bar s house cocktails rather than classic techniques The basics fall away The aesthetic the client-first approach defines the drink more than the craft We ve lost the art of technique in majority spaces Kennedy says Bartenders come in and they just learn what that bar does The upshot A very disappointing cycle of bad drinks They never went away Not everyone sees fruity martinis as a guilty pleasure Tiffanie Barri re award-winning bartender and educator known as The Drinking Coach says these drinks never disappeared they were just out of the spotlight They never went away she says A martini glass that has color in it is just what you should see she says To her fruity martinis aren t a dumbing-down of cocktail practices they re approachable joyful and visually irresistible We eat with our eyes Barri re notes A brown drink on the rocks absolutely doesn t hit the same in a beliefs built on shareability Social media criticism also doesn t faze her When someone photographs a drink she made it s pride not pandering That s my baby going across the bar on the tray When someone takes a picture it s like a birth certificate she says Barri re also sees a generational shift younger drinkers aren t drinking less they re drinking differently This generation wants to taste something besides alcohol she says Fruity martinis she argues represent the democratization of drinking less gatekeeping more flavor more fun The trend isn t superficial It reflects a cultural convergence of nostalgia social media and a palate increasingly oriented toward approachable fruit-forward flavors And in a post-COVID world people aren t looking to be quizzed on cocktail history they want something light bright and uncomplicated A fruity martini offers a liquid throwback a little luxury a signal of playfulness and yes a small Instagrammable escape Importantly the revival isn t regressive Bartenders are elevating these drinks with high-quality ingredients local fruits and refined technique Several orders may still be aesthetic-driven and TikTok may flatten aspects of cocktail way of life but the fruity martini isn t just back It s better As palates evolve its next chapter is just beginning Read more about this topic To Gen Z Obama-era nostalgia tastes like yoyo Tourist towns see rising hunger in the off-season Tailgate foods that hold up on championship day The post The fruity martini s colorful comeback appeared first on Salon com