Ask the Bartender is a weekly featuring in which I answer the questions you were too drunk or shy to ask in person. This week’s question comes from Heidi:OK, I’ve always wanted to know, and after watching some Bond flick this weekend I have to ask. Martinis: shaken or stirred, what the hell?This is one of those topics where sharing your opinion can make you come off like a snot, and I do bore of the entire “What’s a martini?” debate. Short answer: Whatever floats your boat. Correct answer: Stirred….Shaking the shit out of drinks became a thing I don’t know when, probably around the time of all that Cocktail nonsense. It’s one part showmanship, one part speedy, though not by much. If you drink vodka, well then it shouldn’t really matter to you. For other drinks, shaking can affect the final flavor in a few ways. Shaking produces a colder drink. This is a plus if you drink vodka martinis, as you want the nothing spirit as cold as possible. For gin drinkers, I think shaking shuts down the aroma of the spirit. It’s not a snobbery issue, it’s an issue that when I pay good money for a gin martini up, I want to smell all of those big beautiful botanicals.Shaking also dilutes a drink. Agitating the ice that much with the high-alcohol spirit melts more ice than plain old stirring. For a bar, this means the resulting product will look fuller in the glass (every tenth of an ounce counts) and will be just less burning on the palate for the first sip. Shaking also produces the thin layer of ice chips so many people cream their pants over yet some of us find unsavory and sloppy. If you make a drink that contains liqueurs, for example, shaking undoes all that oily goodness on the tongue that a thick-feeling liqueur provides.When you shake alcohol with ice you’re also aerating it, and some people claim this affects the gin (bruising it). I agree insomuch as you lose some of the mouthfeel, but also note that this is too fine a point for most drinkers. At home, I keep my gin and vermouth in the fridge so I don’t have to shake or stir, and I personally think I get the most viscous-feeling martini this way. So, for me, the correct answer is: Start with cold spirits and screw the ice.Got a question for the bartender, email me here: mdutton@seattleweekly.com.