Let’s get dirty, martini!

If, in these cocktail times, you prefer to drink a spirit neat, that raises eyebrows. But some people simply don’t like sweet. And many cocktails tend toward sweetness. While salt is what makes a mix truly interesting. Like the dirty martini. Since Spectre James Bond’s favorite. And once also that of FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

Actually, I almost always think it’s a shame to turn a spirit into a cocktail. A kir royale or mimosa? Give me bubbles raw. A hurricane? Hold the syrup, sugar, pineapple juice and grenadine. In other words: just give me a glass of rum. Blue Hawaii? Let’s skip it altogether.

There are exceptions, of course. A G&T with truly nothing but G and T. A whisky sour with—indeed—only whisky and lemon juice. And perhaps some whipped egg white. Bitters-based drinks are doable too. Like a negroni (gin, vermouth, Campari).

Dirty = cloudy

But when a mixologist asks me which cocktail really makes me happy, I have only one answer: a dirty martini.

In Spectre , James Bond suddenly drinks a dirty vodka martini with a muddled olive!

Fortunately, the average shaker can appreciate this mix of gin, extra-dry vermouth and olive brine. The cocktail owes its obscure name to precisely that addition of olive brine, which makes the end result slightly cloudy.

Spectre

Once, a bartender made me incredibly happy by putting a ‘muddled’ (finely crushed) green olive in the glass as well. And that was long before James Bond suddenly started drinking a dirty vodka martini with a muddled olive in his latest film, Spectre . But it was also long after Franklin D. Roosevelt supposedly popularized this exact cocktail. During WWII, he is said to have served the dirty martini to Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill.

Such a briny mix also pairs perfectly with favorite tapas such as fried fish, crostini with bean dip or hummus, crab legs or deviled eggs.

Let’s get dirty, martini!

James Bond drinks his dirty martini this way.

Text: Marjan Ippel
Image: film still Spectre