COME CLEAN,
LEAVE DIRTY
Starkle, starkle, little twink,
Who the hell you are I think,
I’m not under what they call
The alcofl uence of incohol.
I’m not drunk as thinkle peep,
I’m just a little slort of sheep.
— Sold Cober
T
he martini is a drink synonymous with strong.
And it may also be among the most versatile
cocktails known to man. The classic defi nition
of martini, of course, is gin, vermouth and a green olive,
plus a dash of orange bitters (a small but important
detail that is, sadly, often left out). Even the James Bond
variation — with vodka and lemon peel — is too much of a
departure for the martini purist. If a martini is ordered with
a pickled onion in place of the olive it gets its own name:
The Gibson.
And yet drink menus all over the world show that the
working defi nition of a martini is much, much broader.
Any drink, regardless of the ingredients, is often called a
martini — or given some cutesy ’tini name — if it’s served
in a martini glass. Whatever it’s made of, it’s certainly hard
not to feel classy and sophisticated when sipping from the
iconic, cone-shaped glass.
For a dirty martini, into the sacred mixture goes a splash
of juice from the olive jar and, typically, since the bartender
assumes that dirty martini-orderers really like olives, a
toothpick full of the marinated gems resting rakishly in
the glass. The drink itself, usually clear, takes on a cloudy,
greenish hue. The olive juice makes it salty, the extra olives
make it a meal.
A martini isn’t hard to make and doesn’t require a
cupboard full of ingredients like many cocktails, but it’s
something that feels even more special when a professional
bartender makes it for you. “I’ve tried making martinis at
home and I’m not very good at it,” says Maiya Becker.
“Plus, it feels wrong. When I’m home, on the couch
watching reruns of Northern Exposure, I want a beer. But
out on the town with my girls in a dress? A martini is the
perfect accessory.”
When Becker came of drinking age, she knew she
wanted to try a martini. And yet it took a few attempts to
learn that she preferred vodka, and that her favorite part of
the drink was the olives. Once, she was out with someone
else who ordered a dirty martini, and she realized what
she’d been missing. “A drink that tastes like the olives?”
Becker remarks. “Perfect!”
Before embarking on research (read: drinking) for this
article, I allowed that a martini could be made with vodka,
but diluting the mythically crisp taste of a classic dry
martini with olive juice (or anything else) was an affront
BY VANESSA SALVIA
to civilized culture. So I fi gured I’d better bring along a
drinking companion who actually liked the stuff. Becker
likes them dirty enough that she calls them “fi lthy” — “I
really want to taste the olives,” she says — but there are a
lot of variables with the drink. “I’ve had some that were so
dirty it tasted like I was drinking brine,” she says. “I think
some bartenders think ‘dirty’ means I want as much olive
juice as the glass can hold.”
Becker was along on the fi rst two stops of my martini
quest. The fi rst, and best, was downtown Eugene’s
Horsehead. If you can get over the fact that black rock ‘n’
roller clothing seems de rigeur, then you’ll fi nd that the
Horsehead can make you one of the best dirty martinis
in town. The décor may not be as posh as that of other
downtown drinking establishments, but the lack of lighting
makes that easy enough to overlook.
“Superb,” says Becker of the Absolut vodka extra dirty
martini with three olives she enjoyed there. “Although
it tasted more olive-y than a regular martini, there was a
delicate balance,” she says. “You could taste the fl avor of
the vodka through the brine.”
Despite the fact that martinis may not get ordered very
much, any bartender worth his or her salt knows how to
make one. Bartender J.T. Magee estimated that only “a
sixteenth” of all of Horsehead orders are for dirty martinis,
“if that, and maybe about four orders a night for a martini.”
(He says Horsehead’s most popular drink is vodka and
cranberry juice.)
If sipping a salty dirty martini is good, don’t go
overboard. At Good Times, Becker and I each ordered
(mine: Tanqueray, dirty). Becker was approached by the
lady bartender and I by the male bartender. The good
news: expanding our data set by having two drinks
made simultaneously by two different people. The bad
news: locking lips with Becker’s drink was, shall we
say, disgusting? Not only were the drinks noticeably
different in appearance (mine: an opaque light green; hers:
a pukey, bright green color), they tasted vastly different.
Upon inquiring, we discovered that the lady used a
garlic and olive juice mixer for the drink. For Becker, it
was undrinkable. “It tastes like it’s made with something
you would use to cook with,” she said — imagine olive-
fl avored broth powder.
Though the bartender made Becker a replacement drink
sans mixer, you could tell she was a bit chuffed at the extra
work and having her recipe impugned: “You said you
wanted it fi lthy… maybe you’ve gotten the mix before and
just never knew it,” she scolded us. Lesson: just use the
brine straight from the jar, probably no more than half an
ounce, for the best and brightest balance of fl avors.
My third watering hole was the Prairie Schooner, on a
weeknight at dinnertime. The bar was a solid row of people,
P HOTO BY TR A SK BEDOR THA
A barhopping test of my martini faith
and most of the tables were full of folks eating burgers and
onion rings, drinking sodas, beers, wine, even a bloody
Mary… but nothing in a martini glass. I ordered my dirty
martini from server Trisha West, who said my request was
not exactly odd, but… “We’re typically a straight up or
on the rocks kind of place,” she said. When she delivered
the goods, I was pleasantly surprised that it was almost
mini-sized — easily consumable in two slugs. I sipped.
It was the beginning of the evening, after all, and after a
big martini or two you could be drinking lighter fl uid and
never know the difference. Its crisp yet salty fl avor was the
perfect foil for the appetizer platter our table split.
As Johnny Carson said, “happiness is fi nding two olives
in your martini when you’re hungry.” If that’s so, then
ordering a dirty martini may be the quickest way to make
sure that you not only get a drink that conveys you to a
higher plane of nostalgia, but a snack too.
And there’s another advantage the martini has over
other drinks: everyone looks cool holding one, no matter
what it’s made of. ■
The Bar at
1591 Willamette
Happy Hour:
Tuesday - Friday, 5-6 and after 10
www.eugeneweekly.com
Classic Cocktails.
We’re not reinventing the wheel... just reminding you how folks used to roll.*
*(but we will reinvent upon request)
March 17, 2011
SWIZZLE 5