Confessions of My First Dirty Martini

I have never been one for fancy drinks and exotic food. In college, my roommates and I decided to liven up a summer barbecue with a James Bond theme. This consisted of clever finger foods, funky black ties for the men and our version of a dirty martini. I use the term loosely because it consisted of our "house wine" which came conveniently packaged in an airtight box plus spout and a gallon jug of nameless gin we stored on top of the refrigerator for emergencies. We threw all of this in a cooler filled with ice, tossed in some pickles in place of the olives, closed the lid and gave it a good shake. Et voila! We had ourselves an industrial sized dirty martini...or something.

Years later, I met a bartender friend of mine at his work early in his shift. He jokingly asked me "what'll you have" and I answered in much the same manner, "martini... dirty... shaken... not stirred." He laughed and told me I was mixing my movie references again, as he pulled a martini glass off of the long rack behind the bar. As I realized he had taken my order seriously, I was quick to point out that I was only joking and had no taste for martini's, dirty or otherwise. He just laughed again, and told me to sit and learn. I did, as he made me my first real dirty martini.

After setting the glass on the counter, he placed a single ice cube and a splash of water in it. Leaving it to sit on the bar, he placed a scoop of ice, three olives, gin and a splash of olive brine in a shaker. The amount of brine you add, he told me, is very important to the final outcome of the drink. I took his word for it as he placed the lid on the shaker and began to shake. First slowly and gently, then with a few final harder shakes. I shook my head, certain that this too had some deeper meaning. Pulling the lid off of the shaker he set it aside.
With an artful swirl and a flick, he emptied the water and melting ice cube from the glass. He splashed a bit of vermouth in the glass and swirled it around the bowl for a moment. Just as quickly, he poured it out, and replaced it with the martini mixture. Two perfectly skewered green olives were swirled around the interior lip of the glass, then placed in the center. With a flourish he placed the final concoction in front of me on a fresh cocktail napkin.

After looking at it with some suspicion for a moment, I picked up the glass and took my first sip...and waited. It was amazing. The complexity and the subtlety was extraordinary. There were layers and nuances that I couldn't have imagined experiencing in one sip of any substance. I didn't even know that I knew what a nuance was until that very moment. He just grinned at me and told me it was on the house.

In the years following that first experience I have tried many other martini recipes and many different cocktails, but none have been as exciting as my very first Dirty Martini.