Sometimes the best part of a dinner party is the eating that takes place before the meal! When we entertain, we like to offer a variety of savory items like chorizo, cheese, bread and these gin marinated olives to our guests to nibble on.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up an olive was a salty green thing with a slimy red thing shoved into it. It wasn’t until my first marriage, complete with Italian in-laws that I had the opportunity to eat black olives on a regular basis. And even those were canned.
Fast forward to 2012 when my husband Rick and I visited his relatives in Spain. I still remember being enchanted by the variety of shapes, colors and textures of olives presented to us. They were sold everywhere!
Gin Marinated Olives will be a favorite appetizer
Our friend Kevin introduced us to gin marinated olives. He’d repackage large queen olives with garlic, gin and very hot pepper oil. Some batches were more palatable than others as you can imagine! We expanded the idea to include roasting, trying to replicate the wonderful dishes of marinated olives we frequently enjoyed in Spain.
There’s really no recipe and you can use any type of olive you like. You can also vary the seasoning depending on what you have available. We’ve had olives with lots of garlic and some with orange peel and red pepper. A small container of mixed olives makes for a nice presentation but again, if you have a favorite, use it!
We served this particular batch of gin marinated olives with sliced fresh mozzarella, slivers of prosciutto and the our last bit of chorizo. We’re going to have to make a supply run soon.
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 8 ounces mixed olives drained
- 1-2 cloves of garlic smashed
- several stems of thyme or oregano or rosemary
- 1 small lemon sliced thinly
- 1/2 cup olive oil more or less
- 1/2 cup gin more or less
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C
- Mix the olives, garlic, herbs and lemon in a small mixing bowl with the olive oil and gin.
- Transfer to an oven proof dish, deep enough to hold the olives.
- Add more gin and olive oil if needed to just barely cover the olives
- Bake for about 30 minutes.
- Store leftover olives in a clean jar or other container. Pour the leftover marinade over top.
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More olive recipes to try:
Wow, gin and olives sounds like a killer combination! Will definitely be trying this at my next get-together. 🙂
Oh my gosh I almost made Gin Marinated Olives!! How funny!
I just recently fell in love with olives, so I will be testing out your delicious recipe quite soon 🙂
Welcome to the world of olives! The variety is amazing considering I grew up with the regular green pimiento stuffed olives. A black olive came in the can and was unspeakably foreign to us. I hope you enjoy them 🙂
Interesting! I love olives so maybe I will have to give this a try even though I’m not the biggest fan of gin when coming to drinks 🙂
xoxo Sarah Grace, Fresh Fit N Healthy.
I’m sure they’d be fine if you skipped the gin 🙂 Glad you dropped in!
I have to share this with my mother in law! She loves marinated olives with a variety of marinade favorites 🙂
Thanks for sharing! I hope she like them 🙂
What a great idea, can’t wait to try it!
Gin and olives?! This sounds so good! For some reason, I never think about marinating olives myself. I am a sucker for gin so I will definitely be trying these out!
Oh, I’d love to try this! My boyfriend loves gin, so I think it’ll be a success 🙂
I love this idea and I am definitely trying it. I’ve got lots of olive lovers in this house…my husband is the only one that doesn’t like them! The rest of us could eat them like candy!
Me, too. I don’t know the names of the varieties, but I know which one’s I’m going to like (the little green ones and the light brown ones). I’m sure you’ll come up with some great flavor combinations, too!