Thursday, June 25, 2009

Dirty

[ 20 ] Read Comments | Link to this Entry

Vices Bring Us (or Two Wood Boards With Glue In The Middle) Closer Together

I am a fan of the martini.

It was not always this way. After reaching the momentous age of twenty-one, when an American youth can finally admit that they've been drinking for years, my father — an avid martini drinker — mixed me my first gin and vermouth apératif.

I did not like it. And I gave it a good 3 or 4 hours worth of effort. I could have sucked down 170 or 180 schnapps incarnations in that time. Sure, I'd have died, but I guarantee my fructose-saturated corpse wouldn't have been scowling like a gargoyle.

The problem, as I see it, was that I had yet to develop a taste for the bitter things in life. But, years later, having come to embrace bitterness, in both the "beverage" sense and the "success of others" sense, I was primed to re-experience the martini.

The catalyst was my love of olives. The martini, for me, was primarily an olive delivery system. So naturally I gravitated towards what is termed the "Dirty Martini", or, as is aptly demonstrated in the comic above by the Mojo The Sock Monkey Eight-Panel Players, a martini with olive juice added. And maybe some trash.

Today, I thought I'd share with anyone who's interested my Dirty Martini recipe. Of course, I only encourage those of my readers who are of the proper legal age to partake in this recipe. Should you be underage, I'd recommend you have a Virgin Dirty Martini, which is really just olive juice, some ice cubes, and — to help properly mimic gin's subtle notes of chemical bitterness — three or four pinches of earwax.

So, without further ado, I present:

A Kevin Cornell Dirty Martini

1 glass without any holes or cracks (preferably empty)
2 jiggers (3 oz.) of Gin
1/4 oz. of Extra Dry Vermouth (approximate)
3-85 jalapeño-stuffed olives
1/4 oz. of olive juice (approximate)
Frozen water, cubed or chipped or what have you

The Glass

The most important ingredient to your martini is the glass, without which you'd be forced to mix the martini in your mouth, which hardly bespeaks of class, and is only slightly more acceptable than mixing the drink in a bellybutton. The traditional martini glass has no place in my recipe. I find that its extreme top-heaviness leaves one prone to spills, and one should try and not make a spectacle of oneself should one wish to move onto a second martini without one's wife noticing. Also, I feel a little too dainty holding the traditional glass. I stopped wearing lingerie for similar reasons.¹

So, I specifically opt for a "rocks" glass, sometimes called a tumbler. At home, my specific glass is a sophisticated little number incorporating one glass inside of another, separated by a vacuum. It's a triumph of science. I keep meaning to write science a letter offering my hearty congratulations.

The Liquors

In the past decade or so, the martini found itself to be the Cinderella of cocktails. Suddenly every little bird and mouse and fawn was swooping in and adding bits of this and changing bits of that until finally the only thing that made the drink a martini was that it was in a martini glass. The repercussion of all this fluttering, bleating, swoop-swappery is that now, when ordering a martini, I must specifically ask for the traditional liquor — gin — to avoid being served that boorish, utilitarian usurper vodka.

Now, those with refined palettes often have specific brands of gin they prefer. I won't pretend to be able to tell much of a difference, at least not when the whole thing is a vehicle for olive delivery, so I just take whatever comes to mind first. I won't say what brand I have at home, I'll merely mention that it comes in a large enough bottle to be considered a "jug". Let that be your guide.

The only other liquor in my martini would be a hint of dry vermouth. Bartenders have told me that if I'm going to be having a dirty martini, there's no point in my adding the vermouth, as the olive juice performs a similar role as a foil for gin. However, at the end of my life, as I lay on my deathbed, I'd rather not have my last words be "I wish I drank more vermouth". Doing this now helps me avoid such a fate.

The Olive

When I speak of olives, I am of course speaking of the green olive. The black olive, while delicious, has no place in a martini. It's too mild, lacking the grotesque bitterness I crave. However, that doesn't mean that the green olive swims by its lonesome within my gin-splashed glass. For you see, while fluttering, bleating, swoop-swappery has damaged the martini in general, it has only benefitted the green olive.

Today's modern green-olive-on-the-go can not only contain the traditional pimento, but a variety of foodstuffs: sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, or, best of all, the jalapeño pepper. Hear me now — the olive of choice in a Kevin Cornell Dirty Martini is a jalapeño-stuffed olive. Let no one tell you different! Unless they're holding your kids ransom or something. Then, just do as they demand. I don't want it on my damn conscience that your family was fed to dugongs because you were too stubborn to reconsider my olive preferences, you ass!

The Juice

And we finally arrive at the most important ingredient. Just as I prefer jalapeño-stuffed olives, I prefer the juice said olives have been marinating in. Opening a completely different jar of un-jalapeñoed olives just for the juice smacks of craziness. The only situation I can think of where it might be worth getting a whole different jar would be if you were using habanero-stuffed olives. I've used a couple of these before, and let me tell you the habanero must be used sparingly. Your body will thank you, if "not rupturing in an explosion of salt and brimstone" can be interpreted as the body communicating its gratefulness.

And the rest...

Some other important ingredients I'll leave up to you. The ice for instance. I won't make unrealistic demands on your ice trays. If they cube, let them cube. It's their nature.

In terms of shaking or stirring, I prefer to stir my martinis, but only because I hate dirtying up a shaker (by which I mean, getting filth on it, rather than olive juice, which would be part of the filth, but these sort of semantics are only worth discussing after martini number two). The olives may be place in the drink, or skewered if you prefer it so. Tiny swords or fancy toothpicks do seem to be the common option, but I will say that a tiny sword seems a little dated, and to appear contemporary a tiny rocket launcher or submachine gun might be more appropriate.

Enjoy!

Footnotes

¹Just to clarify, I was wearing it when I worked out. Lace is one of man's most breathable fabrics. I got the idea from this workout video I saw online: "Sally Gets Pumped".