The Dirty Rose

I have to admit, I rarely ever drink a dirty martini. I generally prefer my cocktails to be of the sweet variety. I can suck down margaritas, mojitos, daiquiris, etc. all damn day. However, no one ever seems to do anything to make the dirty martini more complex tasting than simple olive brine and vodka/gin. I’ve also never seen someone attempt a creative garnish for a dirty martini, seeming perfectly content to just throw an olive in a glass of cloudy brownish green cocktail.

Jump To Recipe Jump To Garnish

And even though “brownish” is everyone’s favorite shade of green, I wanted an easy way to kick it up a notch and, of course, make it fancy as fuck. Drawing inspiration from sauerkraut (aka pickled/fermented cabbage, aka very popular in my home state of Wisconsin) and the beautiful color of red cabbage, I made a rose colored dirty martini that both looks and tastes better than your everyday dirty martini.

And it’s easy as shit to do.

For the olives, I usually use regular cocktail onions, because they’re easy to find. But if you can get your hands on some Castelvetrano olives (in brine, not oil), they’re my true favorite. When I make this at home, I use the same jar the olives came in. This means, of course, I have to eat some of the olives (maybe in a tapenade) to make room for the cabbage.

The really nice thing is this garnish will keep for quite a while, although I usually discard any leftovers after a few weeks.

The Dirty Rose

The Brine
10 oz jar of olives,
1 cup (roughly) red cabbage cut into strips about 1/2” wide and 3” long
1/4 teaspoon peppercorns

Soak cabbage strips and peppercorns with the olives in their brine for 3-6 days. You will notice the color of the brine change dramatically from its boring cloudy green to a vibrant crimson, and that means it’s done. Ta Da! You did it, you’re fantastic.

The Martini
Prepare with your preferred dirty martini recipe and spirit.
I like mine with:
3oz of vodka (Ketel One is my current favorite)
.75oz Cabbage/Olive Brine

Shaken and served straight up.

Garnish

Fancy
Pop in an olive and float one of your pickled cabbage strips on top.

Really Fancy
Poke a skewer near the end of a pickled red cabbage strip. Slide on two olives and gently push towards the middle of the skewer. Wrap the cabbage strip around the olives and skewer the other end to hold in place.

Fancy As Fuck
Remove pimentos from two olives. Take a pickled cabbage strip and roll it up, gently pinching one side to create a rosette. Insert the rosette into the olive hole and skewer to hold in place. Repeat with the second olive. Now you look as sophisticated as everyone else thinks they look when drinking a dirty martini.

Save