Dirty Vodka Martini

The Dirty Martini adds olive brine to the classic Martini formula, a practice dating back to at least 1901 when bartender John O’Connor at the Waldorf Astoria muddled olives into his Dry Martinis. President Franklin D. Roosevelt reportedly splashed brine into his cocktails at the White House, helping popularize the practice, though the term ‘Dirty Martini’ itself didn’t appear until the 1980s. This vodka version — vodka, dry vermouth, and olive brine, shaken and strained — trades the gin Martini’s botanical complexity for a clean, briny, savory profile. The olive brine rounds out the vodka’s neutrality and gives the drink a distinctive, almost umami character.