A twist on the Dirty Martini, bringing together Nocellara Del Belice olive juice and oil, olive oil fat-washed gin and a crystal-clear reverse-spherified olive garnish.

Reimagining the Dirty Martini

The Martini is a classic for a reason. Its simplicity leaves little room to hide, making the quality of each ingredient and the precision of every technique particularly important. For this interpretation, we wanted to explore the olive beyond its familiar presence, using it to bring a more pronounced character to the drink.

At the heart of this recipe sit Sicilian-grown Nocellara Del Belice olives. Plump and buttery, these olives are renowned for their delicate flavour, and they are used to create both an olive-infused gin and a clarified olive juice, letting their character run through the cocktail in different ways. The finishing touch? A clear reverse-spherified olive completes the serve for a modern twist, reworking one of the Martini’s most recognisable details.

An elegant cocktail perfect for batch serves, this Martini remains grounded in the original while exploring new ways to extract, concentrate and present the flavour of the olive.

Getting More from the Olive

To make the most of these carefully selected olives, we combine pectinase and the centrifuge to create our two key ingredients, clarified olive juice and rich olive oil.

Like many fruits, olives contain pectin, a natural fibre that holds the cell walls together but also traps a portion of the fruit's water and oil content. The pectinase enzyme works as a catalyst to break down pectin and release both the trapped juice and oil droplets, which not only increases the yield but also reduces the resulting liquid's viscosity.

The mixture is then centrifuged, using rotational force to separate the remaining fibres from the juice and oil, allowing us to recover two distinct, flavour-rich ingredients.

The Reverse-Spherified Olive

A glass bowl containing a mix of fresh and reverse-spherified Nocellara Del Belice olives

Giving the Martini its final twist is the reverse-spherified olive garnish. Developed by Ferran Adrià and his team at elBulli in 2005, reverse spherification offered a new way to create liquid-centred spheres.

The technique reversed the process of traditional spherification in that rather than adding sodium alginate to the liquid and dropping it into a calcium bath, calcium is added to the liquid before it is introduced to a sodium alginate bath. The technique opened the doors for what spherification could do with ingredients such as milk and yoghurt, where calcium content had previously ruled them out.

The altered technique also has an important effect on texture. In basic spherification, the gel membrane continues to develop over time, eventually solidifying the sphere. Reverse spherification instead forms a gel membrane around the outside, preserving the liquid centre for a satisfying pop even when the spheres are prepared in advance.

For our Martini, we build on this technique by using the clarified Nocellara Del Belice olive juice, which creates a perfectly clear result. It retains the familiar form of a traditional Martini garnish, but transforms its appearance, bringing a modernist touch to an otherwise classic serve.

Nocellara Del Belice Juice and Oil Recipe

Ingredients

  • 800g Nocellara del Belice Olives (Pitted)
  • 3g maldon salt 
  • 8g Pectinex

Method

Add the olives, salt, and Pectinex to a Thermomix and blend, bringing the temperature to 37°C.

Pass the resulting mixture through a chinois.

Spin the liquid in a Centricook at 400RPM for 20 minutes. This will split the pulp to the bottom, juice in the middle and olive oil on top.

Reserve the liquid and olive oil by passing through a coffee filter, then place in the fridge to remove the oil.

Olive Oil Washed Renais Gin Recipe

Ingredients

  • 575ml Renais Gin
  • 40ml Nocellara Del Belice Oil
  • 1g lanolin

Method

Blend together the gin, oil and lanolin and freeze until the oil solidifies.

Remove the fat cap and filter through a coffee filter.

Olive Reverse Spherification Recipe

The Nocellara Del Belice Olive Martini being garnished with the reverse-spherified olive.

Ingredients

Method

In a pan, warm the 50g water before adding the Calcium Gluconate, mixing until clear.

Pour in the olive juice and use the UltraTex to slightly thicken the mixture.

Place in a vacuum pouch and vacuum seal to remove excess air from the mix before pouring into olive-shaped moulds and freezing.

When needed, mix 1% sodium alginate into water to create a sodium bath and pass.

Drop the frozen olive mix in and leave for 30 seconds.

Carefully remove using a slotted spoon and place into fresh water.

Store in olive juice.

Nocellara Del Belice Olive Martini Recipe

Ingredients

Method

Stir all together and place in the freezer in a Renais bottle until ready to serve.

Garnish with the reverse-specification olive.

Notes

For extra flourish, we add a flavoured vapour bubble to the finished cocktail, which can then be popped on service with a drop of olive oil.

We used Belazu Nocellara olives for our juice and oil.

A mixed bowl of both fresh Nocellara Del Belice Olives and the reverse spherified olives, alongside our Seaweed-Nori Tasty Bites, makes a perfect martini accompaniment.

Served in the Steelite Utopia Pasabahce Timeless Nick and Nora.


Nocellara Del Belice Olive Martini finished with a flavour bubble and being popped by a olive oil dropper