After two weekends of crazy traveling, we spent today in complete collapse. We made tea, played video games, and eventually went downstairs to take a look at the top of the fridge and figure out what to drink. What to drink was a tiny martini.

Normally "a tiny martini" sounds like a ridiculous affectation out of a prewar Britain novel. These, however, were in tiny glasses, and so could take "tiny" as an actual descriptor. Mine could also take the descriptor "dirty," which is how I like my martini as a general rule.

Dirty martini

dry vermouth
gin
olive juice
olive

You know how to make a martini. Put a drop or two of dry vermouth in your glass, top with however much gin you want, and add a fat green cocktail olive. Dirty martinis just require a bit of olive juice along with the olive. No problem. What else could you possibly do with the brine in the olive jar?

John prefers the pink gin, another minor variation. This one seems even more stereotypical: you can just see a bunch of imperialist officers sitting around India with glasses of these, and maybe a few gin and tonics for qood quininic measure, sweating profusely and trying to ignore the thought of potential uprisings.

Pink gin

bitters
gin
lemon peel

Shake three or four drops of bitters into your glass. Add gin and lemon peel, twisted to release the oil. The bitters will turn your gin a lovely light salmon pink.

If we weren't such lazy, lazy heathens, we would probably shake our martinis with ice before drinking. But we are lazy, and besides John generally has the cocktail shaker full of water and lime. So we add ice instead. Then we get distracted and forget to drink, and our martinis slowly dilute and condense until we remember them again.