Food - Drink
The Umami-Bomb Martini To Try If You're Not A Big Vodka Fan
By CLARICE KNELLY
There's a lot of reasons you may have an aversion to vodka, but drinks like a perfect dirty martini can help you love this spirit again. While gin may be traditional, vodka's clean flavor provides a great blank slate for different flavors, especially this umami twist that can erase any bad memories you have of bottom-shelf martinis.
Sari Kamin, Public Programs Director at the Museum of Food and Drink in New York, has a signature dirty martini with vodka, olive juice, and colatura, an Italian fish sauce made from anchovies. Food & Wine says of this unconventional drink, "the umami from the salty fish, coupled with the fat, bonded perfectly with vodka's clean flavor."
Though this drink seems especially unique, other chefs have worked with similar concepts before, such as when Alton Brown created his own "longer-lasting" dirty martini brine with olives, brine, water, salt, capers, some hot pepper, and notably, a piece of anchovy. This savory combo might make you forget that you're lukewarm on vodka.