You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth and one of the shortest-lived.

De Voto treats the martini as an emblem of immediacy: some pleasures are defined by their fleeting perfection and are diminished by attempts to preserve them. The comparison to a kiss underscores intimacy and timing—both depend on freshness, temperature, and circumstance, not storage. By calling gin and vermouth a “happiest marriage” yet “shortest-lived,” he frames the drink as a momentary harmony whose excellence exists only at the instant of union. The line also gently mocks fussy domestic habits (like refrigerating a mixed drink) in favor of ritual, spontaneity, and the cultivated art of doing things at their peak.