I used to sit up to the bar at our lake home as a young teen and watch my mom carefully and meticulously put together my dad’s favorite cocktail: a dirty martini. I loved watching my mom, beautiful, perfumed and dressed up, expertly crafting a martini for my dad’s arrival home from a business trip. It seemed romantic. When I was old enough…my dad let me have a sip, I spit that sip out right back in his face. It tasted how diesel fuel smells. My love affair with martinis came to an abrupt end.

Until….a year ago. I was sitting at my favorite sushi restaurant, Blue, when someone took the liberty of ordering me a “Dirty Blue”. It tasted fantastic. I tried, unsuccessfully, to re-create the cocktail at home, trying to remember my mom’s method and trying a variety of techniques I found on the internet. Unfortunately….I could never get the simple ingredients to blend together the way they did at Blue. Eventually, my husband couldn’t take another failed attempt at home (I mean…I was wasting a lot of vodka) so he asked the bartender and we discovered the trick. And now…I am enjoying the best dirty martinis in the comfort of my home…Blue is just lucky I don’t have the talent to hand roll my own sushi! 🙂

Saturday evening as Andrew and I prepared for some guests I decided to whip one up and share the details with my blog readers.

First things first, the ingredients…..

the ingredients

1. Vodka

2. Vermouth

3. Queen Sized Green Olives

4. Fresh Blue Cheese

5. Ice

6. Shaker & Glass

Because the drink is mostly vodka…I believe it to be extremely important that you use top shelf vodka. I’m an Absolut fan, so that’s what I stick with. As for the Vermouth, you will want dry vermouth not sweet. If you want to read about the differences you’re going to have to head to Google, or you can just trust me on this one. 😉 Please, please, please go out and purchase the classic queen green olives and fresh blue cheese. Do not purchase the blue cheese stuffed olives in the jar, I promise its not the same. It’s important to have a shaker and an olive pick is handy, but a toothpick can get the job done as well. I also have a plate ready for the olive stuffing.

olive picking

I always start by stuffing the olives. I grab all of the ones I will need out of the jar and get them on my plate. (Please note, my photographer/husband was being incredibly hilarious this evening, so there are lots of giggles caught on camera.)

pimentos

Then I use my olive pick (again, a toothpick will work) to get the pimentos out of the olive. I really love olives, blue cheese stuffed or not, but when I am pulling those pimentos out…I can’t help but be a little grossed out…soft slimy things!

blue cheese

Next comes the blue cheese! Opening the lid on that thing is horrible and I like the stuff!! Andrew hates blue cheese and so the dirty martini making experience is extra brutal for him.

stuffing the olives

Take the blue cheese crumbles and start stuffing those olives, I literally stuff as much blue cheese into each olive as I possibly can (so healthy, I know.)

stuffed olives

The messier your olives look….the better this martini is going to taste. I promise! Again, look at those pimentos…not appealing.

stick em

Get those olives on the stick….

always stuff extra

And sneak a couple if you can! 😉

vermouth

Are you ready for the secret??

The Vermouth….don’t think of it as an ingredient in the martini. It does not get added to the shaker in any way!!! Instead, pour a little in the martini glass…..

swirl

Swirl it around the glass making sure that it touches every inch of the inside of the glass.

pour it out

And then….discard the rest!! I used a little too much here, you really only need a splash!

ice it up

Now…fill up your shaker with ice, like a lot of ice. The more you can stuff in there the better as far as I’m concerned!!

add vodka

Add your vodka…I use 2 shots of vodka for one martini.

add the dirty

Add your olive juice…I use 1 shot of olive juice and sometimes even another splash because I like mine extra dirty!
shake it for me

And then you shake it up! I’m cracking up because I am pretty sure my photographer had just said something inappropriate in regard to the shaking. Men.

pour it in

Pour it in your vermouth lined glass.

add the olives

The dirtier your martini…the murkier it will look in the glass. This one was perfection!

Add your yummy olives!!

enjoy

And…enjoy!!!

I feel like this post needs one of those “please drink responsibly” disclaimers. But, seriously, if you want to be a productive member of society both while drinking and the morning after drinking I would stick to no more than two of these. 🙂

Hope you like it! Let me know if you try out this technique!