On a recent, bustling Saturday night at a trendy cocktail bar on Chicago’s near northwest side, my friend perused the menu full of bespoke drinks — most containing bitter aperitifs — and looked vexed.
“I think I want an Espresso Martini,” she said.
Between effusive apologies she ordered it, but the harried bartender took it in stride, replying, “We can create something similar.”
The resulting Carajillo (espresso and Licor 43) variation arrived froth-capped and pretty as a picture, well within the reasonable timeframe for a busy weekend night. I wondered aloud whether my companion’s embarrassment stemmed from the drink itself or the fact that it was an off-menu, shaken cocktail.
“I don’t know, I just feel so basic ordering it,” she said. Thirty minutes later, emboldened and caffeinated, she ordered one more.
We can’t get enough of the Espresso Martini, even as cocktail bar menus increasingly skew toward the bitter and the bespoke. Indeed, orders for the coffee-spiked martini that originated in 1980s London were up 50% during the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2023, nipping at the heels of the iconic Old Fashioned. This is according to OnPrem Insights from Union, which gathered data from more than 1,000 high-volume U.S. accounts using bar and restaurant POS platforms. Yet depending on the bar you’re in, the drink carries some basic-b**ch baggage.
This feels heaviest when it’s self-imposed, since most bartenders I’ve asked don’t really care what we order.
“Every generation has that drink that becomes so ubiquitous, so popular,” says Liam Davy, head of bars at acclaimed, London-born steakhouse Hawksmoor, which now has more than a dozen locations across the U.K., Ireland and the U.S. “The Espresso Martini is one of the few modern classics that was invented in the U.K. that’s become a global success. It’s a bit more grown up. It’s also iconic looking; you can spot it straight away. When people see it being made, they want one.”
The original version of British barman Dick Bradsell’s creation — aptly named Vodka Espresso — contained just espresso and a shot of vodka tied together with simple syrup. Later on he added Kahlua to it. By the end of the 1990s it was more commonly served in a coupe and broadly known as an Espresso Martini. At Hawksmoor it seems to transcend occasion; people order them before dinner and after as a pick-me-up with or as a dessert.
“It’s a perfectly fine cocktail,” says Bradley Stephens, co-owner of cocktail and South American tapas bar Cereus PDX in Portland, Oregon, and vice president of the Board of Directors of the US Bartenders' Guild. “Just like the hot song of the summer, you hear it too many times, it can get annoying.”
On the spectrum of time- and labor-intensive drinks, the three-ingredient Espresso Martini pales in comparison to, say, a Ramos Gin Fizz, whose original recipe called for a 12-minute shake. It does require a “good, hard shake” of cooled espresso or cold brew concentrate with vodka and coffee liqueur to achieve its telltale cap of thick, creamy foam, Davy says, potentially frustrating as orders pile up. We the customers can exercise empathy and order a beer or glass of wine. But the shame of ordering something we deem too obnoxiously mainstream is our own challenge to overcome
“I never know with bartenders if they’re going to love or hate Espresso Martinis,” says Nancy Sanders, general manager at Golden Gopher in downtown Los Angeles. Golden Gopher sells probably 20 Espresso Martinis per night on weekends, which is significant for a beer-and-shot type of joint.
Sanders has noticed that orders are skewing toward sweeter, agave-centric drinks and Espresso Martinis, which she credits to Gen Zers, who unapologetically drink what they like. She agrees that drink menus have gotten more complex, as restaurants and bars offer their own takes on the classics and their derivatives. It’s a taller order for a bartender to keep everything straight, but that’s part of the job.
“If somebody asks for a drink, I’m a yes man, as we all should be behind the bar,” she says.
What’s different now is that at well-managed bars, “almost everyone does most of the hard work behind the scenes in the prep and batching stage so cocktails themselves are quite sort of low lift,” Davy says. Homemade syrups, cordials and infusions are prepped ahead of time. Nonperishables like acid, sugar and spirits are mixed together pre-shift. Bar wells are stocked to prioritize components and tools for menu-based drinks.
Even the comparatively analog Espresso Martini is easier than ever to build. The slew of quality cold brew concentrates to hit the market in recent years cut down on the time-consuming step of pulling then chilling shots of espresso a la minute. In March 2023, Ketel One rolled out a nitro Espresso Martini machine for bars and restaurants to alleviate the headache of shaking them for a crowd. Bartenders need only pour in the ingredients and pull the handle, dispensing the sweet, frothed-up martinis in a mere 20 seconds. Golden Gopher bought one earlier this year to the delight of its often slammed bar staff. “I swear, since we had that machine put in, every single bartender has called me or grabbed me in passing to say thank you,” Sanders says.
Not everyone has gotten on the bandwagon. In the two years since Stephens opened Cereus in June 2022 — just as the Espresso Martini craze was kicking off — he has yet to field a single order for one at his bar.
“I’ve got this wonderful problem at my bar, which is that 99% of all beverage sales are from my cocktail menu,” he says.
When he first opened, he dutifully stocked his back bar with ingredients for de rigueur cocktails: cranberry juice for Cosmopolitans and a $100 jar of fancy olives for Dirty Martinis. “I ended up throwing it all away because it went bad,” he says. Last month, someone finally ordered a Cosmo, but the bar had long since stopped carrying cranberry juice.
Fortunately, one of the bar’s signature drinks, the American Troubadour, does contain cold brew, just in case an Espresso Martini lover should ever darken Stephens’s door and summon the courage to order just what they like.
