The Dirtiest Martini

We love our home.  If I had the time to type and you had the time to read I would tell you the hysterical story of how we came to buy it.  Suffice to say we did.  Now, this house is darned near perfect for us.  It has a big screened porch, a basement, room for gardens (flower and vegetable - although not as much room as we'd like,) a fabulous entertaining floor plan, doesn't require left turns against bad traffic to get out, is close to a well-plowed road in the winter...  You get it.  It's just a fabulous house.  Except for one thing.  The heating and cooling system.  In spite of our best efforts, there's a fifteen degree difference between the basement and the second story on really hot days.  Like we've been having. 

I don't sleep well when it's 80 degrees.  Neither does Connie.  So, he took the bull by the horns and figured out a way to make the pull-out couch in the basement sleepable.  Is that a word?  Well, it is now :-)  Every quilt in the house was piled on the old, rickety, uncomfortable mattress and turned into a secondary mattress.  I contributed one thought and that was the old chaise lounge pads in the garage.  The ones that have been on the top of the shelving unit since we moved in here and that we've both threatened to throw away umpteen times. 

You remember the story about the princess and the pea?  That's what the couch feels like now.  Except we both kind of rolled to the middle since we had the seam between the cushions to deal with.  But, a pillowy v-shaped bed is preferable to 80 degrees. 

Now you know why when Connie asked about a cocktail I responded as I did. I knew what I wanted immediately. I described it as ice cold, not sweet, and it was a Dirty Martini. Not a problem! 

Now, we know what a Dirty Martini consists of. We've had them before and other than the fact that there's salt in the brine, they're definitely the type of drink where you feel like you can have a couple or few (no driving). A conference type drink. Someone else is paying, call for the top shelf and knock yourself out.

So, Connie loves to sit down and check his drink cookbooks even though we know that it's gin (or vodka) vermouth (or not, mostly not in a dirty) some olive brine, shake with ice, strain and garnish. Nice and easy. He pulled out six of the cocktail recipe books and nary a Dirty Martini. Whoa!

Finally he pulls out The Bartender's Black Book by Stephen Kittredge Cunningham. Not only does Stephen have the Dirty Martini, he has the Dirty Martini 2, the Dirtier Martini, and the Dirtiest Martini. Way to go, Stephen! Dirty? Pretty much as above. Dirty 2? Crush some olives into the mix. Dirtier? Add some onion juice into the Dirty mix. Dirtiest? Crush both olives and onions, add both their juices, ROCK and ROLL!

So, guess which one we tried? That's right, the Dirtiest Martini! It was very good - a 4 on our 1 to 5 scale. Connie says he is going to add a half of a pickled jalapeno slice to the muddle and use gin instead of vodka the next time due to the aromatics in gin that are absent in vodka. This was a VERY nice drink - we'd recommend it.


The Dirtiest Martini
For two
Mash 4 olives and 4 cocktail onions in a mixing glass
(we used jumbo olives, so only used 2)
Add a dash of onion juice (we used it from the cocktail onions)
Add a dash of olive juice (again, from the olive brine)
1 oz dry vermouth (we used Martini and Rossi extra dry)
6 oz vodka (we used Smirnoff's)
Add ice
Shake, shake, shake
Prepare a garnish, on a toothpick, with a cocktail onion, an olive and another cocktail onion.
It says to strain in to a short glass. Being non-compliant, Connie did not strain it rather, poured it into a rocks glass with ice (I told him that I wanted it ice cold, so I guess he was marginally compliant).
Regardless, he shook, shook, shook and poured. Added the garnish, and we both kissed the one we love and enjoyed. Please do the same.

from The Bartender's Black Book