The Globe had a great piece yesterday about the differences between shaken and stirred martinis. Scientists at the University of Western Ontario published an article in the British Medical Journal claiming that shaken martinis are twice as effective as their stirred counterparts at deactivating hydrogen peroxide, making them chock-full of antioxidants. Why? Science! Okay, so the science is ambiguous at best, but when someone is telling us that drinking alcohol can protect against heart disease and cataracts, we choose not to ask questions and just accept the fact as a gift from a benevolent higher power.
Our favorite part of the piece comes from one Eben Klemm, who claims that the taste of a stirred martini is superior to that of a shaken one. This is basically a run of the mill assertion, notable only for Klemm’s background information. It seems that Mr. Klemm is “a former researcher at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Cambridge (and now a bartender in Manhattan).” That, dear friends, is a career path.
I know James Bond has a preference, but is there a big difference between a shaken martini and a stirred one? [Boston Globe]
