by Steve Middlebrook

Created on: February 21, 2007   Last Updated: May 04, 2007

The Dirty Martini

Many good restaurants - not just the trendy ones - now offer a staggering variety of that wonderful comeback drink - the Martini! If you want chocolate in that drink you can have it. Your favorite fruit? Chances are you'll find it on the list. And lots of other more exotic combinations.

To a purist, this development probably seems an abomination. To take the pure silvery color of gin or vodka and stir into it anything other a fine dry vermouth would seem a sacrilege to many. And to me, too, as one who first tasted the delicious tang of this drink in a college frat bar many years ago and have since enjoyed the drink numerous times on land, sea and air. But I cross the purist line in one, hopefully forgivable respect: If olives make the martini, I ask, then why not add olive juice to the mixture to make it an even tangier drink?

As seems always the case, someone beat me to this punch many years ago. It's called the "dirty" martini - probably because the use of a dash of olive juice to the vermouth and gin or vodka mixture clouds up the drink and occasionally produces small chips of olive or pimento.

But try it next time if you've never done so. Turn your nose up publicly, if you wish, at the quaint list the waiter puts in front of you. But, to the bartender, tell him that you want it pure, of course, but a little bit on the dirty side!

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