Why You Need 'Dirty Pasta Water' For An Even Filthier Martini

Of all the martini varieties in creation — gentle 50/50 martinis for beginners, gin or vodka riffs with all their actual differences, and novelties that might add a luxurious ingredient like caviar where a more expected garnish might go — there are very few upgrades to the world famous classic cocktail that raise an eyebrow. But the dirty pasta water martini sure is eye catching.

That there's nothing new under the sun seems to be particularly true for cocktails, but this intriguing tipple does seem to trace back to Fiorella restaurant in Philadelphia. The $17 drink lists just vodka or gin, pasta water, and an olive among its ingredients. Fiorella's martini swaps the standard dry vermouth for the titular zero ABV starchy pasta water, making it less like the boozy 50/50, and a little milder than a typical martini. Any salt in the pasta water will also bring in a distinctive salinity that pairs mightily with the olive to really punctuate its own "dirty" signature finish.

Unlike a lot of super complicated signature drinks and purportedly new beverage inventions, the dirty pasta water martini is easy to recreate, and probably technically cheaper than the usual when studying vermouth costs versus dry pasta, salt, and tap water. We're also going to go out on a limb here and assert that water used from a dried pasta boil will probably pack more starch than water used to cook fresh pasta. 

Pasta water's distinct quality comes from essentially having been infused with your rigatoni, orecchiette, and spaghetti. The longer it "marinates," the more of those starchy, thickening properties it takes on. Because dried pasta takes longer to cook than fresh pasta, that means that dried pasta water will be more concentrated than fresh pasta water, and thus more prominent in other preparations like this inventive little martini.

Once you've collected the carb-infused H2O, you can swap it in using your usual preferred martini ratio. That often amounts to two and a half ounces of gin or vodka, a half ounce of vermouth, and your preferred garnish. If you like your martinis on the drier side, you typically either reduce the amount or completely abstain from adding vermouth. With that in mind, try adding in a half ounce of pasta water anyway, as it doesn't bring any of the conventional sweetness that vermouth would. And for nights that aren't necessarily preceded by "pasta," this is yet another great reason to always keep pasta water in the refrigerator.