Best Vodka Martini Recipe

Traditional dirty vodka martini. Shaken and served up with stuffed green olives. The dirty martini has to be one of the best cocktails ever, and this recipe will help you make the perfect one, every single time.

A dirty vodka martini helped me realize one thing. Turns out I must officially be a grown-up … because I always thought you had to be one to enjoy drinks like Dirty Vodka Martinis.

Remember the old shows like I Love Lucy and Bewitched? How Ricky and Darren would come home to a fresh martini cocktail at the end of the day?

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For me, it was sort of the same thing as blue cheese. It was never my favorite, then all of the sudden, like overnight, I loved it. A dirty martini with hand stuffed bleu cheese olives — that’s when a martini is truly perfect in my world.

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I have always loved olives, of any kind, and the idea of a dirty martini just sounded good. It wasn’t until I had a good one that I was hooked.

The Best Classic Dirty Martini

A great dirty martini relies on the quality of its very simple ingredients. Your olives, the vodka, and the vermouth. If you shop quality in these departments then you already have gone more than halfway to a perfect dirty martini.

It helps to know a bit about your vodka if you want to make a great martini of any sort. We can get into gin martinis another time because that is a whole other topic. But, for vodka martinis, just like gin, the quality of the alcohol makes a big difference.

This is a cocktail where you are meant to taste the alcohol, not bury it. Use cheap booze in some sort of sugary and syrupy mixer meant to hide it. For cocktails like dirty martinis, you want to taste the spirit, not conceal it.

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These days, there are so many varieties of vodka to choose from. There are great domestic vodkas and of course the ever popular Russian, Polish, Swedish and French vodkas.

The quality of vodka is defined in a few ways. First, the amount of “Heat” it has is important. A good clean vodka doesn’t feel like it is burning your tongue. A good clean taste that is smooth and doesn’t burn your tongue is preferable.

Next, the type of water and the type of grain, vegetable, or even fruit makes a difference. The best vodkas are made from specific wheat grain. However, there are perfectly good vodkas made from potatoes, grapes, and even beets.

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I use the bigger Spanish Queen pimento-stuffed olives. The smaller manzanilla olives are a good stand by, if you can’t find the big Spanish ones. If you are feeling extra daring and want to really dirty things up, remove that pimento, and hand-stuff some bleu cheese into those Spanish olives!

You don’t want to forget where you found this perfect dirty martini recipe – so make sure you pin it to your favorite Pinterest board before you go!

I always chill my glasses before I make them. Fill them with ice and cold water, and let them sit while you gather the rest of the ingredients.

Vodka Dirty Martini

For me, it’s Grey Goose Vodka, some vermouth, olives and olive juice, plus a martini shaker with ice. I love when you shake them just right and there are little ice chips in the glass!

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkThough cocktail purists may insist that gin is the only proper way to make a Martini, the Vodka Martini’s enduring popularity shows that not all agree. While gin will open added dimensions of aroma and flavor to create a more complex cocktail profile, using vodka as the base spirit will create a cleaner drink that allows the subtler notes of vermouth to more effortlessly come through.

There’s no definitive origin story to who first popularized swapping gin for vodka in a classic Martini—the list of claims is too long to be worth going into detail—but the practice grew in the mid-20th century as efforts increased to grow vodka’s acceptance in the U.S. market. The spirit was often described to unfamiliar consumers as “white whiskey” or “flavorless gin, ” and found an audience in those seeking cocktails with lighter profiles.

The Best Vodkas For Martinis, According To The Pros

Consequently, in the ensuing years, substituting vodka for gin in an array of formerly gin-based cocktails became mainstream. For the Martini, this practice perhaps reached its peak of visibility after Ian Fleming’s fictional spy James Bond first enjoyed a “medium dry vodka martini…shaken not stirred” in the 1962 film version of

, Bond’s preferred specifications for what’s now known as a Vesper Martini called for both gin and vodka, with a heaver proportion of gin).

Regardless of its murky origins and rise to fame, the Vodka Martini is still a popular Martini variation that will work well for drinkers who seek a clean, straight-forward cocktail that doesn’t overwhelm the palate with overly complex flavors. Vodka can also provide something of a blank canvas for those seeking to experiment with the growing array of dry vermouth options on the market. Without the weight of gin’s often juniper-heavy notes dominating the cocktail, vermouth’s often more herbal and citrus-forward notes have room to stand and be better appreciated on their own.

Best Vodka Martini Recipes

While the Martini originally called for a gin base—at the time of the cocktail’s invention, vodka was relatively unknown outside of Russia and parts of Eastern Europe—early recipes were a far stylistic cry from the version known today. Old Tom, a slightly sweetened type of gin, was the original Martini spirit of choice, which would create a drink the differs greatly from most contemporary, drier iterations.

, call for ingredients like gum syrup and curaçao, now unheard of in modern variations. This goes to show that with cocktails like the Martini that have undergone such drastic stylistic changes over the years, sometimes it’s best not to get too hung up on traditional recipe specifications.

While spirit choice always comes down to personal preference, because of its straightforward flavor profile, a high-quality vodka is particularly preferable in a Vodka Martini, as there’s little else ingredient-wise to mask off-flavors. It’s important to aim for something cleaner that doesn’t demonstrate overt alcoholic heat, as this can mute the subtler notes of the vermouth, which should take prominence.

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I don't like this at all. It's not the worst. Sure, this will do. I'm a fan—would recommend. Amazing! I love it! Thanks for your rating!

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This Dirty Martini recipe is one of my very favorite cocktails. A fun little fact, a restaurant once tweeted at us that they used this recipe. They loved it so much that it became a regular feature on their menu.

Dirty Martini Cocktail

I used Kettle One and Mezzetta Spanish Queens! Perfection!! Though I must admit, I enhanced, ever so slightly! I used two ounces of olive brine and threw Four olives in! Although your right, it MUST be ICE COLD!! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe!!

A dirty martini is a regular martini that is made “dirty” with the addition of olive brine. While most dirty martini recipes call for a little brine and some Vermouth, we opt to take out the Vermouth and add in more brine. The result is a very cold and flavorful cocktail that olive lovers will fall head over heels for.

Start with quality vodka. Since the majority of this cocktail is vodka, you want to buy a high quality brand that its going to go down smooth. Not sure what you like? Visit a distillery for taste testing! You will find an amazing bottle.

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Add olive brine. This recipe calls for almost double the brine most other recipes call for. You all know how I love the taste of things that are pickled (looking at you Pickled Red Onions!). If that’s not your jam,