Boyne Mountain Resurrects Tom Symons' Famous Martini

To my surprise whist paging through last months issue of Traverse I stumbled across this article about my mothers cousin, Tom Symons. The Tom Symons of Symons General Store in Petosky fame. The stories I've heard about Tom make this as believable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

Not being a martini drinker myself, I'm tempted to give this a try for old times sake. Sounds like a perfect "docktail" idea for a Saturday at Lakeside.


Tom Symons may be gone, but the martini he and his friend Bill Harber made for 30 friends or so at the end of a Boyne Mountain ski day has been resurrected at the Snowflake Lounge.


Tom Symons, a legend at Boyne Mountain is gone, but his martini recipe lives on. Symons and his friend Bill Harber were weekend ski patrol and roommates at Boyne Mountain back in the 1940’s and 50’s.Their après-slopes cocktail hour was so famous, the Boyne folks resurrected it at the Mountain’s 60th anniversary celebration last year, turning a guest room off the Snowflake Lounge into a martini lounge à la Symons. Pay tribute yourself by taking Symons’s martini recipe for the masses on your next ski vacation.

TOM SYMONS MARTINI (as told to Molly Kircher by Bill Harber)
Serves 30.

1 gallon vodka
1 pint vermouth
1 food service sized jar of olives
1 snowbank
1 Stack of hotel room disposable cups


In the morning before heading out to ski, pour the olives into disposable cups. Then pour the gallon of vodka into the olive jar and place it in a nearby snowbank. While you ski all day, make a point of finding interesting people and give them your room number for cocktails before dinner. After skiing, return to your room, shower, dress for dinner and prepare for the arrival of the invited guests. Retrieve your vodka, turn on your Frank Sinatra lounge music, and make a show of pouring the ice-cold vodka into the disposable cups with several olives and a wave of the vermouth on top.