Cocktail · Spirit-forward
Dirty Martini
Gin, dry vermouth, olive brine — the martini that got its hands dirty.
How to order it: Ask for it 'dirty' to taste, not to drown. Three olives, always odd numbers.
Flavor profile
The recipe
- 2½ oz gin
- ½ oz dry vermouth
- ½ oz olive brine
- Stir very cold; coupe or martini glass
- Three olives
The story
Bartenders were muddling olives into Martinis as early as the start of the twentieth century, but the dirty variant's most famous advocate held higher office: Franklin D. Roosevelt, an enthusiastic if erratic home bartender, was known to splash olive brine into the Martinis he mixed for guests during his nightly cocktail hour. For decades the drink was treated as a vulgarity — salting the cathedral — until the 1990s and 2000s made it the most popular Martini order in America. Purists still wince; that's part of the pleasure. The Dirty Martini endures because it admits what Martini drinkers rarely say aloud: the olive was always the best part.
Classic variation
The Dirty Martini is a riff on a classic. Meet the original:
Adjacent pours