Purposeful pickled olives

I received a bucket of cured olives from my friend Susan. The unexpected gift, sent my mind into overdrive, thinking up flavours for the pickling. With the cellar already stocked with jars of olives at different stages of maturation for general use, I decided to pickle these olives purposefully for their exclusive use in cocktails.

My favourite cocktail is an extra dry gin martini, shaken not stirred.  A shaken martini has a certain 'je ne sais quoi'. The first pouring of the liquid, with its chilled haze, lets the glass go from cloudy to clear as it keeps you company on a warm evening.

A dry martini with three olives

I know cocktail aficionados will disagree. They generally believe that a stirred martini is better. I like the chemical reaction that happens in a shaken martini. A shaken martini is chilled quicker. The shaking action bruises the gin, causing the oxidation of the aldehyde molecules in the liquor, altering the flavour of the liquor by making it ‘sharper’.

A great martini deserves a great olive or three, never two. Some consider it unlucky, but I think two is just bad form.

Years ago, I discovered the magic of juniper berries. Apart from being great with venison, they add something different to pickles and the curing mix for gravadlax. It was a no-brainer for me to include juniper berries in my pickle mix for the cocktail olives. 

Versatile olives in a Salad Nicoise

Juniper berry infused olives will not only complement a gin martini but add an interesting twist to the brine in a dirty martini. A dirty martini is made by adding a teaspoon of olive brine to the martini.

I am constantly amazed by the creative ideas of people. Things that I never really considered to be a purpose-made food product is suddenly bottled. The imaginative product receives a catchy label and is sold to eager customers. I recently discovered that one can buy bottled olive brine to keep in your bar for making dirty martinis.

I will not be buying bottled olive brine any time soon. I prefer my brine to come from the same jar that the olives that I am going to use in the martini, came from. I have heard the argument “for convenience”. However, I prefer to keep a jar of olives with their brine for use in martinis instead of pre-made olive juice.

At a price of between (US) $10 and $15 for 375ml for this pre-made olive brine, it just seems wrong not to use the real thing.

Garlic, herbs, grape leaves and limes from the garden

Most of the pickling ingredients came from the Towerwater garden. I decided to complement the juniper berries with a mix of fresh organic limes, thyme, rosemary, bay, grape vine leaves, real natural sea salt and good red wine vinegar.

I look forward to tasting my olives preserved with juniper berries in my martinis in due course. Perhaps the brine might convince me to go dirty more often.