Cheers to the espresso martini, and its staying power
LOS ANGELES — On weekends, the espresso martini is one of the top-selling drinks at the Lets Go! Disco & Cocktail Club in downtown Los Angeles.
“It’s the drink of the moment,” beverage director and co-owner Lee Zaremba said on a recent evening at the bar as the glint from a slowly spinning disco ball reflected off his face.
The Italian-style, ’70s-themed bar opened late last year with a cocktail menu that included three takes on the Negroni and a few drinks labeled “fun and citrusy” as well as “stirred and boozy.”
And even though an espresso martini is not a drink you might expect to find at a bar whose specific theme predates the cocktail’s invention in the early 1980s, Zaremba made sure to include it on his drink list.
“We wanted to open with one because it’s a drink that connects cocktail culture and what mainstream people know,” he said. “Also, Red Bull and vodka sucks.”
Zaremba’s iteration has a voracious head, cut with the cold bitter snap of Intelligentsia 5-to-1
cold brew, Averna amaro, Cynar, a touch of simple syrup and vodka. It’s garnished with a smattering of grated espresso beans.
It’s never been difficult to understand the drink’s appeal. In capable hands, it can be a potent elixir that guarantees a jolt of caffeine and a sweet buzz. But after receding into the background for several years, the espresso martini is once again on everyone’s lips, showing up at bars around town, new and old.
The drink was a recent addition to the cocktail menu at Connie and Ted’s, Michael Cimarusti’s New England-inspired seafood restaurant in West Hollywood, though the restaurant has been open for nearly a decade.
“People were asking for it all summer long,” said general manager Matthew De Marte. “It wasn’t on our beverage list, but everyone wanted it.”
By September, a martini made with Amass vodka, coffee liqueur, Baileys Irish cream and Lamill espresso was on the menu.
“We always wonder when a cocktail is really popular, if it’s on a TV show and then people start asking for it,” De Marte said.
‘We wanted to open with one because it’s a drink that connects cocktail culture and what mainstream people know. Also, Red Bull and vodka sucks.’
Lee Zaremba
Co-owner Lets Go! Disco & Cocktail Club
“We just figured it was featured somewhere or a Tiktok thing.”
The drink does makes frequent appearances on the reality TV series “Below Deck,” a show that features the crew of a luxury yacht. It’s a favorite among the crew and the wealthy patrons who hire the boat. It speaks to the accessibility of the cocktail, which in its basic format includes ingredients you’re likely to find at any bar: a base spirit, a coffee liqueur and espresso or coffee. It’s a drink any bartender can conjure at a dive bar, a chain restaurant in a suburb or the fanciest restaurant in a big city.
But though the espresso martini has been considered mainstream for decades now, it wasn’t an overnight phenomenon.
According to Simon Difford of the Difford’s Guide, one of the most comprehensive cocktail resources on the internet, a bartender named Dick Bradsell created the vodka espresso cocktail at Soho Brasserie in London in the early 80s . At the request of a model who was in need of a drink to “wake her up and (mess) her up,” Bradsell whipped up a tipple inspired by the coffee grounds littering the service station next to him. He combined fresh espresso with vodka, sugar syrup, Kahlua and Tia Maria.
Difford, who met Bradsell in the 1990s and eventually became lifelong friends with the bartender, said he didn’t have his first espresso martini until years after it was invented.
“A few of us had had a vodka espresso and it wasn’t a big drink,” Difford said. “It only started to get more traction in the ‘90s when he renamed it the martini because everything else at that time was called the martini.” Cocktails served in V-shaped glasses were all the rage at the bars in London, along with fresh fruit drinks like the watermelon martini.
“People wanted to order anything with the name ‘martini’ and that’s when it really took off,” he said.
Over the years, the drink has become more representative of a “let’s party” mindset and an overall flavor profile, rather than an actual recipe. If the mere presence of a caffeine-fueled, coffee-scented dark substance is detected, that’s enough to warrant the name.
“You can swap out the base spirit,” said Difford, who prefers his made with aged grappa. “You can use cold brew instead of freshly brewed coffee. You can add other liqueurs and flavored syrups. It just works.”
Difford attributes the drink’s continued popularity to the ingenuity of his friend Bradsell, who died in 2016.
“Even badly made, it still tastes OK,” Difford said. “It’s a cocktail that is hard to really get wrong, hence it’s one that people like, because it works. It’s good that we remember the guy who came up with it.”