Jeffrey Morgenthaler Bartending and Cocktail Advice Since 2004

My first real fancy bar job was at a French restaurant. I’d been working for like six years in dive bars and clubs already but this was like, black tie, crisp white shirt, starched bistro apron, the whole thing. Pouring wine and TONS of Martinis. At least once a night someone would order a Martini with bleu cheese stuffed olives. We didn’t have them behind the bar so you would have to run to the kitchen, beg the slammed pantry cook for a little bleu, and then pop the pimento out of some bar olives with a toothpick and stuff them yourself. Always when you were buried in the weeds. It was a pain in the ass.

I grew up in California, and all along I-5 there are signs for The Olive Pit. Deep in the Sacramento Valley in the middle of nowhere lies The Olive Pit, a fun, cheesy, silly kind of roadside attraction right in the heart of olive country where tons of olives and almonds are grown.

Recently, my girlfriend and I were driving back from California and we found ourselves at The Olive Pit (as we always do). And I thought, you know, I do actually love a delicious bleu cheese stuffed olive Martini. I guess I finally got over my trauma from 20+ years ago. So this time I picked up a bunch of jars of them to bring home. Because they have, naturally, a million kinds of stuffed olives there at the Olive Pit.

Anyway, I brought them all to the bar (except one for home) and this post is to let you know that if you, like me, enjoy a bleu cheese stuffed olive Martini from time to time, then Pacific Standard is here for you. And I would love to make you one. I was a hater for a long time but you know what? Bleu cheese stuffed olives and a Martini are fucking awesome with a steak frites.