“Always have a rhythm in your shaking. Now a Manhattan you always shake to foxtrot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to a waltz time.” Nick Charles, “The Thin Man”

Contestants shook, rattled and poured to their own rhythms last week as they vied for the title “Maine Martini Mixologist.” A few opted for stirring their concoctions, even though James Bond counsels against it.

There was just one hard and fast rule – everyone had to use vodka – Maine-made vodka to be precise. Cold River Vodka, the only spirit produced in the United States made entirely from Maine-grown potatoes, sponsored the martini mix-off.

All other ingredients were left up to the imagination of the 10 people who entered the contest held Thursday night at Dennett’s Wharf Restaurant in Castine. Three contestants created recipes that called for blueberries, two garnished their concoctions with peach slices and one used the juice of the mangosteen, a tropical fruit grown in Thailand. Contestants were judged on five categories: creativity, originality, presentation, showmanship and taste.

Brian Foster, creator of the Castini, was judged the winner. He named his cocktail after the harbor where he moors his boat the Windsong each summer.

Foster’s father, Walter Foster, attributed his son’s skill at shaking and stirring to his paternal grandfather who ran a saloon in North Providence, R.I., “before, during and after Prohibition.” The winner’s maternal grandfather also spent some time as a bartender but did not make a career of it, the elder Foster said.

“This is just something I did last night,” the boat captain declared as he swirled vermouth around the bowl of his martini glass, then tossed it “overboard” over his shoulder. “I just came back in yesterday after five days out with my 86-year-old dad.”

As Brian Foster filled his cocktail shaker with ice, he explained what he was doing to the panel of five judges – two of whom run Cold River Vodka. Then, he added the vodka and Grand Marnier, a cognac liqueur flavored with citrus.

“The Castini is shaken and stirred,” he said, smashing the myth that only one or the other applies to martinis. “First you shake. Then, you pour it into the glass. Add two splashes of olive juice and stir. Save the olives for pizza. Finally, garnish it with a pepperoncini and a monkey swizzle stick.”

After Brian Foster “served” his creation to the judges, he made a second cocktail for them to taste. That is what made the sailor a winner, according to Bob Harkins, the chief operating officer for Cold River Vodka.

“He didn’t try to hide the taste of the vodka, he underscored it,” Harkins, a former U.S. Ski Team coach, said after the winner had been awarded a new cocktail shaker and shot glasses, engraved with the Cold River Vodka logo, tucked into a handmade potato basket.

The Castine event is one of six such contests to be held this summer in restaurants around the state. The first was conducted last month at the restaurant 93 Townsend in Boothbay Harbor. Other contests are scheduled in South Portland, Sebasco Harbor, North Conway, N.H., and Portsmouth, N.H. The winners of the regional contests will compete for the state title of “Maine Martini Mixologist” in Boothbay Harbor in September.

Nancy Marshall, who runs a public relations firm in Augusta, created the competition as a way to promote the product, which hit store shelves in November. Several contestants at the Castine event took the opportunity to promote their own local businesses. Jane Irving and Terry Jennings, owners of Blue Moon Body Treatment in Castine, were named First Runner Up for their Blue Moon Spatini.

Unlike the other vodkas on the liquor store shelves, which are mostly made from grain, Cold River Vodka has a distinctive texture and taste. Potatoes have more sugar, which give it a hint of sweetness and a smoother finish than grain-based vodkas, according to the company’s head distiller Chris Dowe (pronounced Doe).

The process of making vodka from Maine spuds is relatively simple. Between 6,000 and 8,000 pounds of potatoes are dumped into a 1,475-gallon kettle where they are boiled prior to the fermentation process. Later, the liquid goes through a 1,000-liter copper pot still and circulates three times through a 34.5-ft. cone to reach a purity of 96.2 percent alcohol. Water, pumped from an aquifer fed by the Cold River in western Maine, is filtered and added to the alcohol, which is then bottled.

It takes about 14 pounds of potatoes to make a bottle of Cold River Vodka, according to Dowe, the distiller, who formerly worked as a brewery consultant. The company expects to produce between 6,000 and 7,000 cases during its first year of operation in Freeport, he said, and the firm has room to double production at its current location on Route 1, south of the downtown.

Cold River Vodka is the brainchild of two Aroostook County- born brothers – Lee and Don Thibodeau – who have had very different paths in life. Don Thibodeau and his wife Brenda own and operate Green Thumb Farms in Fryeburg and grow the potatoes used to make the spirit. Dr. Lee Thibodeau is a neurosurgeon in Portland. It took three years to refine the distilling process and to obtain the necessary state and federal permits to produce the vodka and begin distribution.

Cold River Vodka is sold in Maine and New Hampshire and should be available in southern New England soon. The martini-making contest was a fun way to introduce the product directly to Maine residents and visitors, Harkins said.

The martini mix-off coincided with the 200th anniversary of the cocktail. While many of the recipes for wine, beer and spirits were brought to the New World by immigrants, the cocktail is an American invention.

The first recipe using the name “cocktail” was published in June 1806 in a publication called the Balance and Columbian Repository. It was described as “stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and biters.”

Where the name came from is open to debate. Some argue it originated from the bar where a mixed drink was adorned with the tail feather of the owner’s pet cockerel. Others say it was for a barmaid named Coctel.

The undisputed king of cocktails remains the martini, according to the Web site Food Reference.com. It was created for a traveler by bartender Jerry Thomas at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco, according to the Web site. The name originates from the traveler’s destination, the town of Martinez, outside San Francisco.

William Grimes, the restaurant critic for The New York Times, has disputed that theory. He wrote in his 1993 book “Straight Up or On the Rocks” that the martini was named in 1912 for the man who invented it – Martini di Arma di Taggia, a bartender at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York.

Originally, martini cocktails consisted of 2 ounces of gin and one ounce of sweet white vermouth. Today, martinis contain very little dry vermouth.

Prohibition elevated the martini’s status because the spirits they were made from did not require the skillful blending and long aging process that whiskey does. Cheap but drinkable “bathtub gin” was relatively easy to produce, so martinis were more readily available during the age of the speakeasy.

Vodka, however, surpassed gin in popularity as the main martini ingredient in the 1990s, according to the on-line encyclopedia, wikipedia.org. In 2005, it was the nation’s most popular spirit, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, accounting for 26.7 percent of U.S. liquor consumption.

Judy Harrison can be reached at jharrison@bangordailynews.net.

Foxy Martini

Created by Kristina Libby of Nobleboro, winner of 93 Townsend Mix-off in Boothbay Harbor.

2 ounces of Cold River vodka

1/2 ounce of Frangelico

Shake vigorously in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Coat rim of glass with a mixture of coarsely ground salt and pepper. Pour into a chilled martini glass. Place a Maine-made Fry Family potato chip in the glass. Place a wedge of blue cheese on the rim of the glass.

Blue Moon Spatini

Created by Jane Irving and Terry Jennings of Castine, First Runner-up in the Dennett’s Wharf Restaurant Mix-off in Castine.

2 ounces of Cold River Vodka

Splash of Roses Infusion (black raspberry flavored)

Shake vigorously in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Coat rim of glass with a lemon slice. Pour into chilled martini glass. Garnish with a honeydew melon ball soaked in Roses Infusion.

Blue Passion Martini

Created by Tom Ehrman and Vice Coates of Castine, Second Runner-up in the Dennett’s Wharf Restaurant Mix-off.

1 1/2 ounces of Cold River vodka

1/2 ounce of passion fruit puree

1 ounce of blueberry simple syrup made in Bar Harbor

Shake vigorously in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Pour into chilled martini glass. Garnish with fresh Maine-grown blueberries.

The Martini Lestat

Created by Libby Bunten of Castine, Third Runner-up in the Dennett’s Wharf Restaurant Mix-off.

2 ounces of Cold River vodka

1 ounce of Bloody Mary mix

Shake vigorously in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Coat rim of the glass with celery salt. Pour into chilled martini glass. Garnish with a thin slice of a red Maine-grown potato and a thin celery stalk stuck through a large green olive.

And the winner is…

The Castini,

Created by Brian Foster of Castine

Captain of the Windsong

Ingredients

1 ounce vermouth

2 ounces Cold River vodka

A splash of Grand Marnier liqueur

A double splash of olive juice

1 pepperonchini

Directions

Place vermouth in chilled martini glass, swirl around to coat the glass and discard, preferably overboard. Place vodka, liqueur and olive juice in cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously for a minute or two. Pour chilled into martini glass. Garnish with pepperonchini.