Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Pickle 2 Electric Boogaloo

Happy Olympics Friday! Granted competitions started a couple days ago, but the Opening Ceremony is tonight and I’m extremely excited. I’ve always loved the Olympics, be it summer or winter I always watch. I come by it honestly. My father used to work for NBC Sports and would always travel to the places the Olympics were going to be and it was always fun watching places where my dad was, as well as watching for his name in the credits during the closing ceremony broadcasts.

What does this have to do with the drink of the week? Well, nothing really. I’m kind of being a little lazy this week. I’m trying the pickle martini from last week, but with a twist. When unpacking a random bag from Christmas, I found some dill pickle salt I was given and I figured I would try to top the same drink with some of the pickle salt, to add some salt and brine flavor to the one i tried last week.

Pickled Martini

3 oz. London dry gin

.75 oz. dry vermouth

1 bar spoon (about 1 tsp) cornichon brine

Cornichons for garnish

2-3 twists of dill pickle sea salt. 

Combine the gin, vermouth, and brine into a cocktail shaker or mixing glass filled with ice. Shake or stir as desired (I stirred), then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with the cornichons, and top with the dill pickle sea salt.

Right off the bat the dill pickle sea salt makes a difference, at least on the aromas. It smells more pickle like, I’m hoping it translates to adding flavor as well.

Add to the flavor it does. The salt changes the flavors for the better I think. The dill pickle salt adds a little bit of the missing brine flavor that I was looking for last week. The salt and dill flavors also compliment the rest of the ingredients nicely. It doesn’t overpower any flavors and adds a little bit of depth at the back end as well. However as I drink this, a rather disappointing downside starts to become apparent. though, the salt sinks to the glass, and slowly make the last few sips towards the bottom just a little too salty for my liking. Not totally undrinkable, but I wasn’t a fan. If I had nursed the drink longer, it probably would have become worse.

So this was a worthy experiment that started out good, but fizzled out at the end. I liked where it was going, but I think the only thing that would make this drink perfect is use proper cornichons and their brine.