In an episode from an early season of the Simpsons, Moe — Springfield’s lone bartender — is about to toss his jar of pickled eggs into the trash. Homer is aghast: “Moe, don’t throw out that brine!” he cries before guzzling down the jar. As anyone who’s ordered a martini in New York lately can tell you, we’re all Homer now.
Dirty Martinis have been with us for around a century, the addition of olive brine falling in and out of favor over the years. But over the last couple of years, they’ve taken over, with the majority of martini orders in this city veering dirtier and dirtier.
In fact they’ve become filthy, a descriptor that appears on any number of menus. Eel Bar calls its house dirty, which comes in a squat stemmed glass, a Filthy Martini. Time and Tide, a sprawling new seafood restaurant, also sells a Filthy Martini. Other bars have drafted other words to evoke their savory bonafides. Bonnie’s, the Cantonese restaurant in Williamsburg, serves a famous MSG Martini which, on its own is not “dirty,” but which inspired the dirty martini at Smithereens in the East Village that is composed with a gin made from Adriatic seawater and a “Seaweed Eau de Vie.” Bar Snack, a new bar in the East Village, takes its nautical inspiration from Moana, spicing the Boat Snack Martini with chicken bouillon and a chicken-skin-chicharron garnish.
Then there are the dirty-adjacent food martinis: Shy Shy, a new bar in Chelsea, has a Caesar Martini anchored by vodka infused with lemon peel, black pepper, shiitake mushroom and salt, which is fat-washed with extra-virgin olive oil. It is garnished with a romaine leaf, parmesan and an anchovy. Grand Army in Boerum Hill is running a Monday-only special in December: a “Gazpacho Martini.”
Yet no current martini destination is dirtier than the Corner Store. Their $40 “Martini Service” is two martinis, one called Oli’s Dirty and other The Filth, which is nothing more than vodka and brine. A third drink on the menu, the Sour Cream & Onion, tastes like the potato chips sprinkled with sugar.
Any of these bars will tell you their dirty rendition is their top seller, or close to the top. One reason may be the same thing that caused Appletini sales to surge in the ‘90s: People don’t really like the taste of alcohol. “I think they think it’s a sophisticated version of a vodka soda,” says Krissy Harris, the beverage director and co-owner of Shy Shy. “It’s something they can drink that’s safe. They’re scared of the vodka martini, so they’re going to have a little bit of olive juice in there. It’s just easier to drink.”
Harrison Ginsberg, the beverage director of Time and Tide, says the drink’s popularity begets more popularity: “More bartenders are adapting to playing with them and more people are talking about them,” he says. “Bartenders stopped taking things too seriously. They were just like, ‘Let’s just make a good version of it.’” Time and Tide’s version, which is borrowed from Hong Kong’s Bar Leone, features only vodka and a brine informed by smoked olives.
Logan Rodriguez, head bartender of Smithereens, says there’s an element of camp. “We’re bringing back and reinterpreting some of the tackier, trashier classics of yesteryear and embracing how good they can be when you bring an informed sensibility to them,” he says. “There’s a beauty to a really bold, savory cocktail, especially one that is steeped in so much nostalgia and faux glamour.”
From an historical perspective, dirty-martini mania is hardly an anomaly. Martini trends tend to operate in extremes. In the years after World War II, the cocktail could not be dry enough, with society contriving all sorts of gizmos and techniques to hocus-pocus vermouth out of the equation. In the late 20th century, anything called a “martini” swung to the opposite pole, becoming florid and cloyingly sweet. Then, for a short time in the 00s, vermouth-loving urban aesthetes campaigned hard in favor of vermouth-heavy, wet Martinis as the drink’s Platonic ideal.
We probably haven’t reached Peak Dirty yet, but an eventual correction is inevitable. For someone like me, who prefers a martini that’s crisp and clean, the most surprising thing about all these dirty renditions is that most of the drinks I’ve mentioned above are pretty good. They’re balanced and surprising, and as much as I want bartenders to stop screwing around with pantry ingredients, I have to admit that much of what they are coming up with in the name of dirty innovation is pretty damn polished.