Martini Olives: Which to Use, Blue Cheese or Not, and How to Make It Dirty
A martini olive should be green, firm and briny enough to season the drink without clouding it. The classic is a small Spanish Manzanilla stuffed with pimento; the best is whichever olive you would happily eat on its own, because by the end of the glass you will. Here are the olives worth putting in a martini, the case for blue cheese, and how to make a dirty martini properly.
The best olives for a martini
| Olive | From | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Manzanilla | Spain | The classic martini olive: small, firm and briny, usually stuffed with pimento. |
| Castelvetrano | Sicily | Bright green, mild and buttery, for drinkers who want olive without much salt. |
| Gordal, or Queen | Spain | Large and meaty; the olive most often stuffed with blue cheese or garlic. |
| Picholine | France | Slim, crisp and a little tart, for a very dry gin martini. |
| Cerignola | Puglia, Italy | Very large and mild; better as a snack beside the glass than in it. |
Whatever you choose, use green olives, keep them cold, and avoid oil-cured or black olives, which leave a slick on the surface of the drink.
Blue cheese stuffed olives
The blue cheese olive is the martini olive that became a snack. A large Queen olive is pitted and filled with blue cheese, so each bite is brine first, then cream and a little funk. It suits a vodka martini or a dirty one better than a very dry gin martini, where the cheese can take over, and it is excellent in a Bloody Mary. FILTHY blue cheese stuffed olives are Queen olives stuffed by hand in Miami with Wisconsin blue cheese; we wrote about why we chose them.
Stuffed olives also make the easiest aperitivo there is: a small bowl of them, a few green olive and parsley biscuit twists from The Drinks Bakery, and the drinks.
How to make a dirty martini
A dirty martini is a martini with olive brine added, and the brine is the whole point, so it is worth using a good one. Brine from a jar of olives is cloudy and changes in saltiness from jar to jar, and once you have poured it off, the olives are left high and dry. A brine made for the purpose is filtered and consistent. Dirty Martini Juice is a triple-filtered brine made from California-grown olives; here is why we chose it.
Add brine a little at a time, a bar spoon or two, and taste; the right amount is the point where the drink tastes savory rather than salty. A dirty martini is also the one martini that is fine to shake, since the brine clouds it anyway. Our Lello Dirty Martini has the full recipe, and the Dirty + Filthy combo pairs the brine with FILTHY’s olives and adds a complimentary box of The Drinks Bakery biscuits.
How many olives in a martini?
One or three, by bar superstition, which holds that an even number is bad luck. In practice, one large olive or three small ones on a pick looks right in a coupe or a V-shaped glass. Put a spare on the side for the guest who eats the first one before the second sip.
How to keep olives
Once a jar is open, keep it in the fridge with the olives covered by their brine, and lift them out with a clean spoon or pick. Cheese-stuffed olives keep for less time than plain ones, so follow the guidance on the jar.
Questions
What olives are used in a martini? Traditionally pimento-stuffed Spanish Manzanillas. Castelvetrano, Queen and blue cheese stuffed olives are the popular alternatives.
Can I use the brine from a jar of olives? Yes, but it varies in salt and clarity. A filtered martini brine gives the same drink every time.
Are blue cheese olives good in a dirty martini? Very. The cheese softens the edge of the brine, and the olive becomes the snack at the end of the glass.
What else goes with a martini? Something salty and something crisp: olives, salted almonds, a cheese straw, a savory biscuit. A few caper berries are good too. See our guide to an elegant aperitivo and The Martini Hour, or cook with the leftovers in our dirty martini pasta with blue cheese olives.