Secret tips to making the perfect Dirty Martini
Here are a few top tips to help you make the perfect Dirty Martini every time:
Keep your olive jar in the fridge. Keeping your olives and olive brine in the fridge is the best way to make a good Dirty Martini. Some bartenders have been known to use warm brine from a garnish tray, but we would advise against that for sure. First of all, it’s not very sanitary, and secondly, the cooler ingredients make for a smoother drink.
Stir rather than shake. Even though 007 was partial to a shaken martini, certain drinks of this kind work better when it is stirred. The Dirty Martini, for instance, works far better when stirred, since this is a gentler way to combine the olive brine with the rest of the cocktail ingredients.
Olive brine or olive juice?
Ah, the age-old Dirty Martini debate: olive brine or olive juice? It all comes down to convenience.
See, olive juice is something that comes straight from the fruit of the olive tree. This juice yields olive oil and other components that are used, among other things, to make the brine for cured olives. As such, bottled olive juice is definitely a purer product, but also a little harder to get hold of, and far less likely to be a pantry staple.
Olive brine, on the other hand, is the liquid that comes in the jar of olives you buy at the shops. Since olives spend quite a while curing before it’s ready to use, this liquid is heavily infused with the flavour of its contents. This means you will still get that ‘olive-ey’ taste when you use the brine rather than the juice. It’s also a more affordable alternative to olive juice.
