Kate Hudson skips the vermouth and uses a surprising trick to give her dirty martinis a subtle spicy kick.
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There are certain cocktails people get very protective about, and the martini sits firmly at the top of that list. Ask five people how to make the “right” one, and you’ll get six answers, usually delivered with great conviction. Kate Hudson, it turns out, has one of her own.
In a recent episode of Jessie Ware’s podcast Table Manners, Kate discussed her love of dirty martinis, and casually mentioned a small addition she makes before pouring her drink. It’s not a new garnish, and it doesn’t involve changing the recipe itself. It’s just a quick little trick she performs on the glass before the martini even goes in.
The idea sounded strange enough to be interesting—and simple enough that I had to try.
What is Kate Hudson’s spicy martini hack?
Kate’s preferred martini is about as straightforward as it gets: freezer-cold vodka mixed with olive brine and served chilled. There’s no vermouth involved; Kate says she leaves it out entirely.
Then, instead of “washing” the glass with vermouth (a classic technique that bartenders use to lightly flavor a cocktail), Kate says she pours a little spicy olive oil into the glass, rolls it around the inside, then flips it upside down for a few minutes so the excess drains away. It’s an unexpected twist on a familiar technique, and I immediately wondered whether it would actually work.
How To Make a Kate Hudson Dirty Martini
To try this hack myself, I improvised a little. Kate mentioned using a specialty spicy olive oil from Peru, but since I don’t have a Peruvian olive oil producer on speed dial, I grabbed a chili-infused olive oil from Amazon and called it close enough. I poured about a teaspoon into the martini glass, swirled it around, and then set the glass upside down on a dish towel for a few minutes while I made the drink.
While the glass rested, I mixed the vodka and olive brine in a shaker with ice, following Kate’s lead and skipping vermouth entirely. I then tipped the glass upright and strained the martini into it, garnishing it with a few olives for good measure.
How does it taste?
Surprisingly good. I went into this fully expecting the martini to feel oily, but it didn’t at all. The oil’s effect is actually far more subtle than I anticipated. It doesn’t overpower the drink or change its character; it simply gives a classic dirty martini a little extra dimension and a faint peppery warmth.
Visually, the oil also didn’t behave the way I expected it to. Rather than coating the glass in a slick layer, it clung to the sides in a delicate, almost mosaic-like pattern, which was quite pretty. And once the martini is poured, the pattern remains on the glass without seeping into the drink.
The trick is subtle but effective. The cocktail still reads unmistakably as a dirty martini, only it has a quiet peppery lift that shows up at the finish, making the whole thing feel a touch more layered. I wouldn’t have guessed that olive oil had any business near a martini glass, but here we are. And now that I’ve tried it once, I suspect this won’t be the last cocktail in my kitchen to get the olive oil treatment.
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