How To Turn Olive Juice Into Perfect, Luxurious Cocktail Pearls

If you love olives, you might have thought about what to do with the briny liquid in the olive jar. There are easily a dozen ways you can use olive juice to perk up your marinades, dressings, and other recipes, not to mention the umami-packed dirty martini, which leans heavily on the flavor of that brine. If you love that olive-rich cocktail, there's another way you can use your olive juice to bring an elegant and unexpected touch to the glass by creating pearls with the liquid that will float through the glass and pop in your mouth with each sip.

Creating pearls, or spheres, is a modernist cuisine standard often involving several steps and obscure ingredients to trick liquids into becoming bead-like shapes. But for simple liquids like olive juice, the technique only requires a vegan thickener called agar agar, which is derived from seaweed. Agar agar creates a gel that allows the liquid (olive juice, in this case) to hold together in clear pearl shapes as it's dribbled into chilled oil. You can then use the pearls in your cocktails, or anywhere you might want a burst of olive flavor.

About a teaspoon of agar agar powder per ⅔ cup of liquid is needed for this culinary alchemy. Just like making gelatin, the liquid must be warm to dissolve the agar agar. Once dissolved and cooled, the concoction is poured into a squeeze bottle or syringe. The droplets are then squeezed into cold oil such as olive oil or another flavorless choice. The oil ensures your beads of liquid stay separated as they sink. After lifting the pearls out with a slotted spoon and rinsing them in cool water, they can be used right away, or stored in water for a day or two.

Think beyond just using these salty, flavorful, olive juice pearls in a martini. They'd also be an amazing pop of flavor on a crostini with hummus or whipped feta spread. They can take the place of actual olives on anything your imagination conjures, but note that the agar will melt back to liquid if it gets warm, so reserve this garnish for cool or room-temperature ideas.