Here’s a little tip for you.

As well as my usual guidelines on making your martini as cold as possible, I’ve got a tactic for olive lovers to make it colder for even longer.

It’s very simple.

Put a small selection of olives into a container, such as tupperware or a glass.

If you want, you can thread them with cocktail sticks for ease of retrieval later.

Put them in the freezer.

When frozen, treat them like ice cubes. Add them to your martini and they will help keep the drink colder for a little while longer.

As they gently thaw, they will slowly impart their briny flavour.

If you make the drink in the classical style with a twist of lemon, the first few sips will still taste absolutely clean, sharp and citrus, before the savoury tang of salt oozes out of the olives.

Then, when you’re somewhere about halfway through your drink, they will have thawed out, leaving you with a chilled, salty, edible garnish.

This obviously works very well with a dirty martini, but you could try it with Gibsons, filthy martinis or even a hot ‘n’ dirty martini.

Here’s to colder martinis, for longer!