Five Ways to Dirty Your Martini Without Olives

The bartender iced the glass, chilled the gin (stirred, not shaken), spritzed vermouth over top, and laid a single skewered olive in the glass. He presented the cocktail on a gleaming silver tray. 

Despite the fanfare, I wasn’t sold on the drink. It was simply too plain for my taste. The best part was the briny bite of the olive. 

Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved a dirty martini.

A splash of olive brine adds salty-savory complexity that brings out the herbaceous qualities of gin and vermouth while smoothing out the cocktail’s brash alcoholic edge. 

According to cocktail historian David Wondrich, the original dirty martini was invented in 1901 at New York’s Waldorf Astoria, where bartender John O’Connor “sullied” the storied cocktail with muddled olives. The purists were appalled, but the drink took off.

And at some point along the way, brine replaced the crushed olives. 

These days, bartenders dirty martinis with all sorts of additions, including a pinch of MSG with olive brine for the ultimate savory take, as well as swapping olive brine for the salty, tangy, funky liquids from all sorts of other pickles and even the brine from a cheese such as feta.

Inspired by some of these alternative dirty martinis, I decided to do some experimenting. 

I grabbed capers, feta cheese, cornichons, and preserved lemons as well as pickled onions, banana peppers, and jalapeños from the test kitchen pantry and used the brine from each to mix up a slew of martinis. 

Tasters rejected the caper brine, which added fruity flavors. We also weren’t fans of the pickled onion brine, which was too acidic without enough salinity. 

But we loved the unexpected twist the other brines brought to the martini: Feta brine’s lactic acid added appealing smoothness; preserved lemon brine contributed deep lemony flavor without the harshness of fresh citrus; and the cornichon brine brought pleasant herbal notes. 

The standouts, though, were the banana pepper and jalapeño brines, which added pronounced chile flavor and a warming capsaicin kick, in addition to just the right amount of salinity.