Dirty Martini
The classic olive cocktail: gin, dry vermouth and olive brine, garnished with green olives.
- Time
- 5 minutes
- Serves
- 1 glass
- Level
- Easy
- Cuisine
- Cocktail
⚠ Not to be sold or served to anyone under 18. This page is a recipe record; it does not encourage the consumption of alcohol. Do not drink if you will be driving, if you are pregnant, or if you take medication that interacts with alcohol.
The "dirty" martini takes its name from a single addition: olive brine. A classic martini is gin and vermouth, with an olive as garnish but no brine in the glass. Adding brine to the drink itself clouds it — and that is where the name comes from.
It is one of the rare recipes in which the part of the olive normally thrown away becomes an ingredient. Brine carries salt, acid and the aromas of lactic fermentation; it softens the botanical sharpness of gin and gives the cocktail a saline base.
Directions
- Fill the cocktail glass with iced water and leave it to chill.
- Put ice in a mixing glass and add the gin, vermouth and olive brine.
- Stir with a bar spoon for 20-30 seconds. ⚠ Do not shake — shaking chips the ice, dilutes the drink and clouds it.
- Empty the glass of its water.
- Strain into the chilled glass.
- Serve with green olives on a pick.
- The brine can be varied between 5 and 25 ml to taste; the name "dirty" comes from that addition.
Tips & storage
Stir, don't shake. Shaking breaks the ice, dilutes the drink and clouds it. A clear martini comes only from stirring — twenty to thirty seconds with a bar spoon.
Strain the brine. Taken straight from the jar it carries fragments of olive; passing it through a fine sieve keeps sediment out of the glass.
Quantity is a matter of taste. Five millilitres is subtle, twenty-five is distinctly saline. You set your own degree of "dirty"; fifteen is a good middle point for a first attempt.
The glass must be genuinely cold. Chilled with iced water it holds the drink's temperature for minutes. A room-temperature glass warms a martini within two.
The olive decides the drink. Manzanilla types are dry and saline, Kalamata fruity and assertive. Taste the olive whose brine you intend to use.
The vermouth must be fresh. Once opened, keep the bottle in the fridge and finish it within a month; oxidised vermouth ruins the cocktail.
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