If Donald Trump has ruined Diet Coke for you, perhaps the answer is following Dua Lipa’s lead. In a now viral video, the pop star empties the best part of a can of it into a cup filled with ice. To this she adds the brine from a tub of pickles, followed by the brine from a tub of jalapeños. Using both hands, she sips it like it’s hot chocolate.
It may seem like the latest in a series of drinks-based social experiments that only the most successful and famous can get us to try (see Tom Hanks’ Diet Cokagne, or Diet Coke and champagne). But in truth it seems the singer is on to something. Over the past few months, when it comes to cocktails, there’s been a notable uptick in all things salty and filthy.
Aidan Rivett, the bar manager at Noto Edinburgh, says briny drinkssuch as picklebacks have always been a “bartender’s handshake” in the 13 years he’s been in the industry. But now the average drinker is getting a taste for it. “I see people looking for dirtier and dirtier drinks.”
It’s also about waste reduction, he says. “The chefs [at Noto] were using pickled onions for their beef tartare and I ended up using the brine for a momotaro – which is a mix between a gibson and a bloody mary.”
Across the country, pickled onion, beetroot, pickle, jalepeño and even oyster brine are appearing on bar menus – and it would be remiss to speak about dirty drinks and not mention their pater familias, the dirty martini, which is experiencing its own surge in popularity. Rasputin’s in east London does a £7 “five-olive martini” that comes with a green pearl necklace on a cocktail stick. The drink may as well be a jar of olives but with a more expensive, elegantly designed jar.
The drink’s popularity could lie in its simple execution, says Ben Reilly, of Stray in Manchester, who has noticed a steady stream of dirty martini orders. “The complexity of wet or dry, twist or olive, and so on, is simply navigated by ordering a dirty martini; which makes ordering the drink more accessible to those less familiar.”
Alice Lascelles, a drinks writer and author of The Martini: The Ultimate Guide to a Cocktail Icon, says: “It’s all part of that messy, grubby vibe that seems to appeal to a lot of people at the moment. But the reality is ordering a dirty martini is often more fun than actually drinking one, since people often make the mistake of muddling the olive itself into the drink, which creates this murky mess.”
So how do we get dirty without being downright scummy? “It’s important to use brine that’s reasonably fresh – you don’t want stuff that’s been sitting in the fridge for six months getting all manky,” Lascelles says. “I like to add about 10ml of this to the mix and then finish the cocktail with a little spritz of brine at the end with an atomiser so you get that saltiness at the first sip. There’s good dirty and there’s bad dirty.”
She also mentions that this current cultural fondness for the messy may be linked to the cultural epoch instigated by brat – the Charli xcx album that weeded out the try-hards and heralded a new dawn of unpolished partying. It’s not over til the brat lady sings.
Aiden Rivett’s momotaro cocktail from Noto, Edinburgh
25ml kombu infused vodka
15ml mezcal Verde Amaras
30ml La tomato liqueur (Japanese liqueur made from tomatoes)
3ml pickled onion brine
1.5ml saline solution
For kombu vodka:
1 bottle of vodka (I use coldsnap vodka)
25g of kombu flakes
Add to a mason jar and infuse for one hour then strain through cheesecloth or coffee filter.
For saline solution:
100ml water
20g maldon sea salt
Instructions
Add all of the ingredients to a cocktail shaker and stir over ice for 10-15 seconds, then strain into a chilled rocks glass (out of the freezer is best) with a large ice block. Garnish with dehydrated tomato skin or a skewered pickled onion.
Alice Lascelles’ dirty martini
50ml vodka or gin
10ml dry vermouth
10ml olive brine
Instructions
Stir with ice and strain
