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Illustration of a Dirty Martini

Illustration — generated, not photographed

Dirty Martini

Salt cuts straight through the cold gin, turning the drink savoury and faintly cloudy. The brine flattens delicate botanicals, so juniper and a firm spine are what survive; softer floral gins tend to vanish under the olive. The vermouth works as a bridge here rather than the voice.

60 ml
gin
10 ml
dry vermouth
10 ml
olive brine
green olives

Measures — house pour, not sourced

Stirred with vermouth and a splash of brine, olive garnish.

The drink and how it got here

The definition is short: a martini with a splash of olive brine in it, garnished with an olive. It is not a separate lineage but a fork off the dry martini, and everything the Martini page says about how that drink dried out over eighty years applies underneath this one too.

It was official for a while and is not any more. The International Bartenders Association carried the dirty martini on its list and then removed it on one of the revisions — it now sits among the former drinks, alongside the Screwdriver and the Harvey Wallbanger. Being dropped by a committee has done nothing whatsoever to its popularity.

What the brine actually does is worth knowing before you pour it. Salt suppresses bitterness and pushes sweetness and savouriness forward, which is why a dirty martini tastes rounder than a dry one at the same strength — and why the delicate end of a gin's botanicals stops being audible. A bottle you chose for its floral top notes is the wrong bottle here.

The two guides are the standard pour and the extra dirty, which is defined simply as twice the brine. There is no third historical version to show; this drink is a dial, and both settings on it are documented.

Read from Martini (cocktail) — Wikipedia (Variations) · List of IBA official cocktails — Wikipedia (Former drinks)

A splash of brine

The standard pour · Martini (cocktail) — Wikipedia, Variations

  1. Ice cubes being dropped into a tall mixing glass on a dark walnut bar top, a frosted stemmed cocktail glass standing ready beside it.

    1 Ice in the mixing glass, and chill the serving glass while you work. Salt tastes sharper cold, which is the whole reason this drink has to be very cold.

  2. A long steady pour of a clear colourless spirit from a plain blank bottle into the iced mixing glass.

    2 Sixty of gin. Juniper and pepper survive the brine; anything delicate does not, so save the pretty bottle for something else.

  3. A short pour of a pale straw fortified wine from a plain blank bottle into the same mixing glass.

    3 Ten of dry vermouth. It is still in here, working as a bridge between the salt and the gin rather than as a flavour of its own.

  4. Cloudy pale olive brine being poured from a small plain jug into the mixing glass, clouding the clear liquid as it goes in.

    4 Ten of brine from the olive jar. That cloud is the drink's name arriving — measure it, do not eyeball it.

  5. A bar spoon turning inside the mixing glass of cloudy liquid, heavy frost forming on the outside of the glass.

    5 Stirred, not shaken, even here. Shaking makes it cloudier still and this drink is already carrying as much haze as it can.

  6. Straining a cloudy pale drink into a chilled stemmed cocktail glass, three green olives on a cocktail pick resting across the rim.

    6 Strain it up, olives on a pick. They are food as much as garnish, which is more than can be said for most things balanced on a glass.

Extra dirty

The same drink with the dial turned up · Martini (cocktail) — Wikipedia, Variations (twice the brine)

  1. A tall mixing glass of ice holding clear spirit, with a pale straw fortified wine being poured in from a plain blank bottle.

    1 Build it exactly as before, gin then vermouth. Nothing changes until the brine.

  2. A long pour of cloudy pale olive brine from a small plain jug into the mixing glass, roughly double the earlier measure, the liquid clouding thickly.

    2 Twenty of brine instead of ten. Extra dirty is not a mood, it is a number — double, and that is the whole definition.

  3. Straining a distinctly cloudy pale drink into a chilled stemmed cocktail glass, three green olives on a pick across the rim.

    3 Stir cold and strain. Savoury enough now that it drinks more like a snack than a martini, which for a lot of people is exactly the point.

These images are generated, not photographed

From the collection — 1 bottle

  • An Dúlamán

    Irish Maritime Gin

    The pepper dulse already brings brine and pepper, so this Donegal gin meets the olive salt halfway instead of fighting it — and 43.2% keeps it firm over ice.