The espresso martini is the best cocktail template

Try making up your own cocktail. It’s hard. Really hard. Cocktails are balanced chemical concoctions, delicious flavors and fun textures that result from a trick of various dancing ingredients, and usually, when you come up with a cocktail idea and try to make it — even if you’ve read great theory books — it is either too sweet or too nothing, too flat. The best way to come up with one, then, is to play on existing templates. It’s not difficult to make your own sour or spritz, but the best of the best, perhaps the most fun cocktail ever, is the espresso martini. And no cocktail is easier to play with.

Many of today’s classic cocktails trace their heritage to the Prohibition Era, but the espresso martini comes from the swinging nightlife of 1980s London. Though it may be apocryphal, the story goes that a model — perhaps Kate Moss, probably not — asked bartender Dick Bradsell at Fred’s Club in London to make a drink to “wake me up, and then fuck me up.” A mix of vodka, coffee liqueur and espresso will do that. T
here are many ways to make an espresso martini. The classic is 1.5 fluid ounce (45 ml) of vodka, 1 fluid ounce hot espresso and two-thirds of a fluid ounce (20 ml) of coffee liqueur, usually Kahlúa or Tia Maria. However, the best recipe — my own widely admired one — involves 35 ml of a clean, simple vodka (Chopin’s wheat vodka is my choice), the same measure again of Mr. Black Cold Brew coffee liqueur (I also recommend Spring Mill), 20 ml of 1:1 light sugar syrup and a full, fresh, hot, freshly ground, freshly poured double espresso (roughly 60 ml).



If you have an espresso machine, I envy you — and you should use it. If not, a humble Moka pot will do excellently. (Do not try this with coffee from a French Press or — dear God — instant coffee). Pour all the liquids into a Boston shaker; immediately add a lot of ice, and do a hard, fast, two-handed shake for ten seconds or so. Shake it hard — beat up that ice, look deranged, pump your arms — and stop when the outside is icy to touch, but not so much your fingers get sore.

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his is technically over-shaking — when you pour it out, it will look like a big heap of foam — but that’s the trick. Double strain with a Hawthorn strainer into a chilled martini glass, top with three espresso beans — for health, wealth and good fortune — and wait for the foam to settle slowly, leaving a rich, dark color below, and stable, creamy foam on top, about a thumb thick. This is, to me, a perfect drink. It’s tasty, refreshing as hell and has the perfect mouthfeel. It’s sweet but not overwhelmingly so, has a nip of alcohol but not a full bite and puts the coffee front and center. But it’s also the perfect canvas for exploration.

For example, to add subtle creaminess, swap out a traditional vodka for a milk-based vodka, like Black Cow. To add vanilla, add 15 ml Giffard’s Vanille de Madagascar instead of sugar syrup. If you want it to hit harder, use a dark roast coffee, reduce the coffee liqueur, drop the sugar, up the vodka and add a few dashes of The Bitter Truth Dark Chocolate bitters. You can also replace the vodka with tequila (Chica in the Venetian in Las Vegas serves the best version I’ve tried) or with rum. My very favorite rum is Kōloa from Hawaii; their coffee rum makes the perfect rum espresso martini (just leave out the sugar and use a darker coffee liqueur).

If you want to go truly funky, try Atomo Beanless Coffee, a ground coffee from the Portland-based startup that makes a replacement “coffee” from other organic materials. The resulting cocktail has a unique earthy, chicory-forward profile, which you’ll either love or hate, and will taste unlike any espresso martini you’ve had before. If you try Atomo, though, go light on coffee liqueur and stay with a plain vodka; you want to highlight this unique roast, and anything else plays oddly with it.

And then come the flavors. For a Jaffa Martini, swap the coffee liqueur for a chocolate liqueur — you can use Mozart, but I prefer Giffard’s crème de cacao — and triple sec (you don’t need anything flashier than Cointreau). For a mint chocolate martini, use the same formula but use Giffard’s crème de menthe instead of triple sec and add a mint leaf to the top, alongside the coffee beans. For a mocha martini, swap the vodka for 50 ml of Coole Swan Irish Cream, drop coffee liqueur down to 15 ml, and add 5 ml each of white and dark Giffard’s crème de cacao. You can make a “cappuccino” martini by using 60 ml Irish cream instead of vodka with 5 ml of chocolate liqueur and shaking cream to pour on top like an Irish coffee. A dust of chocolate on top and you’re done.

Maybe the best variant on an espresso martini, though, is the chili chocolate martini. My recipe is 35 ml chili infused vodka (infuse it at home; it’s easy, and tastes far better than mass-produced versions), 35 ml coffee liqueur, 10 ml dark chocolate liqueur, 60 ml fresh espresso and the bottom third of a seeded chili, chopped into thin slices. Double strain into a chilled glass, garnishing it with a dusting of chocolate powder and the remainder of the chili, cut vertically, resting on the side of the glass. I can’t think of another cocktail that can be played with this easily, and this successfully.

A quick note though: when playing around with your own espresso martinis, I would advise against using both Irish cream and vodka in the same drink. You never want a sharp alcohol hit in something with a milky mouthfeel. Similarly, add flavoring through natural syrups and liqueurs, not flavored vodkas. Finally, don’t overdo the sweetness — and remember that coffee is the focus; everything else is just set dressing.

When you have those down, you can get “woke up and fucked up” with whatever flavors, twists and kinks you want — and have fun doing it. So go on; it’s happy hour somewhere.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s May 2024 World edition.