Man the Martinis
Grimes, William
MAN THE MARTINIS BY WILLIAM GRIMES I n this time of national crisis, Americans are being asked to shoulder new burdens. This is to be expected. But there is one challenge that even the most...
...That Last time we checked, William Grimes was still allowed to write about restaurants for the New York Times, where this story first appeared...
...The martini has been redefined, repositioned, deconstructed and reconstructed so many times that it might as easily be a glass filled with salmon mousse, marinated squid or chocolate pudding as a blend of gin and vermouth garnished with an olive.With restaurants struggling to bounce back, it would not take a genius to print up a three-martini tasting menu and advertise it as a tax-relief special...
...Current law allows a write-off of 50 percent on a business meal...
...In fact, conspiracyminded analysts might well wonder whether this part of the stimulus package was not in fact sneaked past the EB.I...
...It was not until 1986, however, that Congress succeeded in whittling away the three-martini perk, cutting the rate from 100 percent to 80 percent...
...In an effort to stimulate the economy, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have come up with far-reaching and often ingenious tax proposals and spending ideas...
...Believe it or not, there was a time in the history of the republic when solid, upstanding (at least at the beginning of lunch) professionals would gather at a restaurant and, over a leisurely meal, consume three martinis...
...and the C.I.A...
...It is too much to ask them to drink three martinis...
...My own feeling is that those Americans who lived through the Depression and fought to victory in World War II have served their country and deserve a rest...
...Their martinis, tinted every color of the rainbow, merely advertise their moral weakness...
...The only worry for today's executive will be disguising the telltale signs of fish breath...
...It's a measure of their resolve that their gaze has fixed on a cultural artifact that has been gathering dust since the Carter era...
...Now, even if the full deduction is restored, it may be too late to reap the benefits...
...No, the burden falls to a younger generation.And the prospects of success look bleak.What have they been drinking in the peace-filled interval between 1974 and the present...
...But there is one challenge that even the most patriotic citizen may not be able to meet...
...I refer to the three-martini lunch...
...Reprinted with permission...
...It was a way of doing business, especially on Madison Avenue...
...The generation that put the three-martini lunch on the map, the greatest generation, is much older now...
...In the golden age of the threemartini lunch, from, say, 1945 to 1975, this behavior was not considered abnormal...
...There is one way out...
...Like "twenty-three skidoo" and "here come de judge," the phrase "three-martini lunch" needs to be explained to Americans under the age of 60...
...In 1993, Bill Clinton tamped the rate down to 50 percent as part of his deficit reduction legislation...
...At this late date, a three-martini lunch would kill them...
...Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and the majority whip Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, recently proposed a $40 billion stimulus package that would make business meals fully deductible...
...Public sentiment began to change in the 1970s, however.Jimmy Carter railed against the three-martini lunch as an unfair subsidy...
...means breakfast, lunch or dinner, but the tax-deductible meal is forever fixed in the public imagination as the three-martini lunch.A spokesman for Senator Reid said, "Writing off the full cost of business meals would achieve the three aims of encouraging consumers to spend, putting people back to work in the hard-hit hospitality industry and easing tax burdens on employers...
...NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2OOI 9 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 3 3...
...Cosmopolitans, which are a kind of vodka Kool-Aid, and all manner of mixed drinks that make the Shirley Temple look like a Zombie...
...There is a flaw in the plan.Americans are not capable of drinking three martinis at lunch.Weakened by decades of white-wine spritzers and designer mineral waters, they can barely hoist a Bud Lite...
...Sober, hardworking taxpayers of modest means were being asked to pay the bill for lavish-spending fat cats...
Vol. 34 • November 2001 • No. 8
