Pickle Martini

Vodka, dry vermouth, and dill pickle brine — a dirty martini that swaps olive brine for pickle juice, for a tangier and more herbaceous savory profile.

The Pickle Martini is a variation on the dirty martini, substituting brine from a jar of dill pickles for the usual olive brine to give a tangier, more herbaceous savory profile. Published recipes treat the base spirit as an open choice, with vodka and gin both widely used and many recipes explicitly offering either, and they set the brine anywhere from a quarter ounce to three quarters of an ounce depending on how dirty the drink is wanted. Pickle martinis were already a recognised order by the mid-2000s: John Roberts, owner of the Bushwick Country Club in Brooklyn, has recalled that when Bob McClure stored pickle stock in the bar around 2006 he offered the bar a case specifically for pickle martinis and pickle Bloody Marys — the same circumstances that produced the Pickleback shot, but a separate drink rather than a descendant of it. The style gained wider momentum through the broader pickle-flavoured food and drink boom of the 2010s and 2020s.