I hope you’re an olive freak like me!

DIY Dirty Martini Bar I howsweeteats.com

Because let’s be honest. Like pickles, I can straight up drink the juice. And… I kinda do. With booze.

A few weeks ago I did another project with my favorites dellalo foods and we served up the perfect summer happy hour, starting with this dirty martini bar. It wasn’t all my idea (my cousin lacy definitely gets the credit due to her love of dirtays), but we created some delicious dirties with the most trashed up olives everrr.

It was seriously hard to not eat the entire bowls that were stuffed to the brim.

DIY Dirty Martini Bar I howsweeteats.com

P.S. if you’re not an olive fan, I get it. Eddie doesn’t like olives – however, he also “doesn’t like pickles” and I watched him eat an entire plate of fried pickles on Friday night. Whatever that means.

So! Back to our little bar. At the Delallo store, they have the cadillac of olive bars and I usually go nuts with a container and a fork.

We stuffed some with cold goat cheese and others with those tangy red peppers I lose my mind over. Then we used some gorgonzola stuffed olives, some almond stuffed olives AND some jalapeño stuffed olives rolled in crushed red pepper flakes. In case you like it hot hot hot. Totally could do candied jalapeños in there too? Eeeek.

Also, you can do other cheeses like feta or ummm maybe some of that merlot soaked parmesan? OMG. Brain melting.

DIY Dirty Martini Bar I howsweeteats.com

Since I’m not all about drink and no eat, I made lots of fantastic snacks that I’m going to tell you about this week! They include my ignorant self and a grill and almost catching everything on fire, but you can see some of that in the video below. Get some sneak peekage. Then make a cocktail!

DIY Dirty Martini Bar I howsweeteats.com

DIY EXTRA Dirty Martini Bar

5 from 2 votes
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Ingredients

stuff you need:

  • a bunch of martini glasses, preferably straight out of the freezer
  • a cocktail shaker
  • a ton of HUGE pitted green olives without pimentos
  • a jar of brine that the olives lived in
  • goat cheese
  • gorgonzola cheese
  • roasted red peppers
  • sliced or candied jalapeño peppers, seeds removed if you don’t want to be too spicy
  • crushed red pepper flakes, if you’re crazy
  • marcona almonds, in my opinion they are the BEST
  • vodka or gin, your preference (i choose gin)
  • dry vermouth

Instructions 

  • First off, stick your martini glasses in the freezer. It’s okay if they are only in there for 30 minutes or so. Chill ’em! Start by stuffing your olives and placing them bowls. I found that using the back end of a spoon or a tiny cocktail fork aided in filling the olives – it will be slightly messy though.
  • You can leave the olives separate in the bowls, but the best dirty martini must have THREE olives, so I suggest skewering them on a bamboo skewer or tiny toothpick to make it easy for people to grab. If you want to roll any of the olives in the crushed red pepper flakes, roll them first, then skewer them.
  • Everyone likes their martinis a little different, but I love the combo of about 2 ounces of gin, almost 1 full ounce of olive brine (OMG) and a few drops of dry vermouth – maybe a little less than half an ounce. Shake the gin, brine and vermouth in a shaker with ice then pour into your frosty martini glass. Drop in a skewer of olives and you’re good to go!
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DIY Dirty Martini Bar I howsweeteats.com

I see those olives and my mouth waters. For real.