Espresso Martini — tasting notes & food pairings

Espresso Martini

The Espresso Martini is the definitive coffee cocktail — vodka, coffee liqueur and a shot of fresh espresso shaken hard with ice and double-strained up into a stemmed glass, where it settles under a pale tan crema and three floating coffee beans. It is a contradiction in a glass: a stimulant and a depressant together, bittersweet and coffee-rich, the after-dinner drink that promised to wake you up and let you go out. Despite the name it is not a martini at all — it contains no gin or vermouth — but a shaken coffee sour served in the martini glass.

Bitter20% ABV

A cold, dark, glossy cocktail crowned with a pale tan crema, the Espresso Martini leads with a strong roasted-coffee and espresso aroma over caramel and burnt-sugar sweetness from the liqueur, with a clean, almost odourless spirit lift from the vodka. It is bittersweet rather than sweet — the sugar of the liqueur balanced against the genuine bitterness and faint acidity of real espresso — smooth and lightly creamy from the foam, the alcohol moderate after a hard shake, finishing dry, dark and coffee-bitter. It carries a small caffeine kick from the espresso shot.