The Espresso Martini is the drink of a person who is not finished with the night yet. Vodka, fresh espresso, coffee liqueur, a little sugar, shaken hard until the surface goes brown and the foam stands up like a head on a stout. It has the body of a cocktail and the punch of a double espresso, which is exactly the point.
It is also, by most modern measurements, the cocktail of the decade. The Espresso Martini went from quiet 1990s revival to the fastest-growing cocktail in America, and somewhere in there it stopped being a kitsch order and started being a serious drink that serious bars take seriously. The story of how it got there involves a Soho bartender, a brand-new espresso machine, a young woman with a sharp request, and a decade of third-wave coffee culture that finally made the drink worth ordering again.
The Soho Brasserie, mid-1980s
The drink was created by Dick Bradsell, the late London bartender who built more of the modern cocktail vocabulary than almost anyone else of his generation. The room was the Soho Brasserie on Old Compton Street, and the year was somewhere between 1983 and 1985. Bradsell himself never pinned a date down precisely; his daughter Bea has argued for 1985 based on the David Bowie film Absolute Beginners shooting nearby at the time. The trade press has settled on “around 1983.” We will say the mid-1980s and leave it there, because that is the only date the primary sources actually support.
What everyone agrees on is the inspiration. The Soho Brasserie had a brand-new illy espresso machine installed right next to Bradsell’s service station. Coffee grounds were everywhere. A young woman walked up and asked Bradsell for, in the line that has been quoted in every Espresso Martini story since, something to wake her up and then take her down (Bradsell’s actual phrasing was earthier, but the sentiment is the part that matters). Bradsell, with espresso on his mind, put together vodka, fresh espresso, and sugar, shook it cold, and served it on the rocks. Coffee liqueur came into the recipe a little later.
The customer’s name has been claimed by every fashionable woman of the era. Kate Moss is the most-repeated guess; Naomi Campbell is the second. Both are impossible. Moss was nine years old in 1983, Campbell twelve. Bradsell, asked about it in a 2011 interview, said he could not remember who it was and assumed she was a model. His daughter has said her father took her name to the grave. The most honest version of the story is the one Bradsell told himself, which is that the model is folklore and the espresso machine is fact.
What it was originally called
The drink was not called an Espresso Martini at the start. Bradsell named it the Vodka Espresso, served on the rocks in an old-fashioned glass, and that name and that glass stayed for a decade. It became the Espresso Martini at Match EC1, a London bar that opened in September 1997, when a bartender named Vasco served Bradsell’s recipe up in a martini glass and the new name took hold. That was the moment the drink became a martini-glass drink, riding the broader ‘tini craze of the late 1990s.
There was a brief detour. From 1998 to 2003, Bradsell ran the bar at Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy restaurant in Notting Hill, where the drink was renamed the Pharmaceutical Stimulant to match the menu’s medical theme. When Pharmacy closed, the name reverted to Espresso Martini and stayed there.
The recipe Bradsell actually used
The IBA-codified version is simple: 50 ml vodka, 20 ml Kahlúa, 10 ml sugar syrup, one shot of fresh espresso, shaken hard, strained into a chilled cocktail glass, garnished with three coffee beans.
Bradsell’s own perfected version was slightly more interesting. He used both Kahlúa and Tia Maria, in different amounts: 50 ml vodka, 25 ml double-strength espresso, 10 ml Kahlúa, 5 ml Tia Maria, 5 ml cane sugar syrup. He told an interviewer he based the proportions on the Brandy Alexander, which gives you a sense of how he was thinking about it. The combination of two coffee liqueurs gives the drink a more layered finish than a single liqueur does. Most home bartenders skip this and use one. The drink is fine either way. Bradsell’s version is better.
The drink that disappeared and came back
The Espresso Martini was a London staple through the 1990s and quietly drifted into the background through the 2000s. The cocktail revival of that decade was busy rediscovering pre-Prohibition classics, and a 1980s vodka drink with a coffee-shop ingredient was not part of the conversation. By 2010 the Espresso Martini was the drink of nostalgic ‘tini menus and not much else.
Three things brought it back. The first was third-wave coffee. By the early 2010s, single-origin espresso was a real thing and bars started installing the kind of equipment that took it seriously. A drink built around espresso suddenly had a much better espresso to work with than it had ever had before.
The second was Mr Black Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur, launched in Australia in 2013. It was the first coffee liqueur built deliberately for craft cocktail use, with more coffee character and less sugar than its older competitors. Bartenders who had been using Kahlúa or Tia Maria for years had a new tool, and the drink was suddenly more interesting to make.
The third was Instagram. The Espresso Martini’s foam crown over dark espresso photographs unusually well, and the drink became one of the most visually shareable cocktails of the decade. CNN Business declared 2022 the year of the espresso martini, and by Q3 2023 it was the third-best-selling cocktail in American on-premise venues, behind only the Old Fashioned and the Margarita. It was also the fastest-growing cocktail in the country by a comfortable margin, up 50% year-over-year and 164% over four years.
The Margarita is still the most-ordered cocktail in America. The Espresso Martini is the most-ordered cocktail of the moment, which is a different and arguably more interesting distinction.
What the drink actually is
An Espresso Martini is a vodka sour built on coffee instead of citrus. The structural rules are the same: a spirit, a bittering agent, a sweetener, balanced for a clean finish. Vodka is the spirit. Espresso is the bittering agent and the structural backbone. Sugar syrup is the sweetener. Coffee liqueur sits on the line between bittering and sweetening, contributing both. It is a sour in shape and a dessert in feel.
This is also why the drink can fail in interesting ways. Skip the sugar and it tastes like an iced coffee with a kick, which is fine but is not a cocktail. Use cold brew instead of espresso and you lose the crema, which is what makes the foam crown stand up. Use a stale espresso shot and the bitterness goes flat. Skip the shake and there is no foam at all. Each of those mistakes turns a great drink into a passable one, which is why the Espresso Martini has the reputation of being either fantastic or disappointing with very little in between.
Making one well
Three things matter.
The espresso has to be fresh. Cold brew is not espresso. The crema on a freshly pulled shot is the source of the foam crown, and there is no good substitute. Some bartenders use cold brew and compensate by shaking longer or by adding a tiny pinch of soy lecithin to build foam. We do not. A real shot of fresh espresso, hot from the machine, gives the drink everything it needs.
The shake has to be hard and long. Fifteen to twenty seconds of vigorous shaking with cold ice. Some bartenders dry-shake first to build the foam, then shake again with ice to chill. Either approach works; the dry shake gives a denser head. The point is that lazy shaking gives a flat drink. The Espresso Martini is one of the few cocktails where the surface texture is part of the recipe.
The vodka has to have body. Thin vodka collapses under the espresso’s bitterness and the drink loses its weight. A potato-distilled vodka holds up better than most grain vodkas because it has more mouthfeel, and Silverton Vodka’s creamy finish reads beautifully against a coffee bitter. Espresso wants something to push back against, and a vodka with body gives it that.
The garnish is three coffee beans, floating on the foam. The number is borrowed from the Italian Sambuca con la mosca tradition, where three beans symbolize health, wealth, and happiness. Bradsell did not invent the garnish; he picked it up from bartenders who picked it up from Sambuca service. Three is the right number. Two is not enough. Four is too many.
A note about the coffee
We have been working on a coffee liqueur of our own. The recipe is in the cellar, the math is on paper, and a release is not far off. When it ships, it will be the third leg of the cocktail program we have been building, and the drink we will pour first when it lands is this one. Until then, the Espresso Martini calls for one of the established coffee liqueurs, and either Kahlúa or Mr Black does the job. If you want Bradsell’s version, use both Kahlúa and Tia Maria in his ratio. If you want the IBA version, use Kahlúa alone. Both are good drinks.
Variations worth knowing
The Espresso Old Fashioned swaps the vodka for bourbon or rye and stirs instead of shakes. It is a different category of drink, spirit-forward and serious, but the espresso-and-sugar template carries over.
The Cold Brew Martini uses cold brew concentrate in place of espresso. The result is smoother, less bitter, and missing the foam. It is a fine drink in its own right, but it is not the Espresso Martini.
The Tiramisu Martini is the dessert variant: vodka, Kahlúa, Baileys or fresh cream, espresso, mascarpone if you have it, dusted with cocoa. It is closer to a milkshake than a cocktail. Worth making once.
A Salted Caramel Espresso Martini finishes with a few grains of flaky sea salt on the foam. It works better than it sounds. The salt pulls the coffee forward in the same way it does on a piece of dark chocolate.
The recipe
1½ oz Silverton Vodka 1 oz fresh espresso, double-strength if you can pull it ⅔ oz Kahlúa or another coffee liqueur ¼ oz Tia Maria (optional, for Bradsell’s version) ⅓ oz simple syrup
Shake hard with ice for 15 to 20 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe or martini glass. Garnish with three coffee beans floating on the foam.
Worth drinking well
The Espresso Martini is the rare modern classic that earned its way back. It was made by accident in a Soho bar by a bartender working with what was on hand, and forty years later it is the cocktail an entire generation of drinkers reaches for when the night is not over yet. The drink has body, it has lift, and it has the kind of foam crown that only happens when somebody who cares is making it.
Make one with a real shot of espresso, a vodka that has weight, and a hard shake. The drink will reward all three.
Sources
- Espresso martini, Wikipedia.
- Dick Bradsell, Wikipedia.
- “How the Espresso Martini Became a Modern Classic,” Punch Magazine.
- “Bea Bradsell on the real story of the Espresso Martini,” CLASS Bar Magazine.
- IBA Official Espresso Martini recipe.
- Difford’s Guide entry on the Espresso Martini.
- “Espresso Martini Jumps to No. 3 Top-Selling Cocktail On-Premise,” Union OnPrem Insights.
About the author
Adam Messick is the founder of Abiqua Spirit Distillery in Silverton, Oregon, with ten years in the craft spirits industry. With help from family and friends, he handles the day-to-day work of blending, bottling, and labeling every release of Silverton Vodka, Gallon House Gin, and Üla Orange Liqueur. Silverton Vodka received the American Distilling Institute’s Gold Medal in 2019. Silverton Vodka, Gallon House Gin, and Üla Orange Liqueur have each won Silver at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
Abiqua Spirit Distillery is a small-batch spirits company producing finely crafted potato vodka, gin, and orange liqueur from Silverton, Oregon. Contact: info@abiquaspiritdistillery.com or (503) 837-9869.