The Original Espresso Martini Recipe from 1983

This is the 12×75 house recipe, a refined modern build. It is not Dick Bradsell’s untouched original, which we set out in full further down. Figures for strength, calories and caffeine are approximate because liqueur, syrup and dilution all vary.

The whole drink is a balancing act between five forces: the bitterness of the coffee, the sweetness of the liqueur and syrup, the heat of fresh espresso, the dilution from the ice, and the aeration from the shake. Get one wrong and the drink collapses into an alcoholic iced latte. Here is what each measure is doing. The 50ml vodka gives the drink its structure and stops it becoming a sweet coffee cooler. The 30ml espresso delivers unmistakable coffee without flooding the glass with water. The 15ml coffee liqueur bridges the neutral vodka and the bitter espresso rather than shouting over them. The 5ml rich syrup rounds off the bitterness, and it stays separate from the liqueur precisely so you can dial it up or down to suit whatever coffee liqueur you own.

The two drops of saline are the quiet trick: a trace of salt suppresses harsh bitterness and makes the coffee and sweetness taste more integrated, without making the drink taste salty. And the hard shake does three jobs at once, chilling, diluting and aerating the drink to build that foam. This is why our build is less sweet than many mainstream recipes: it keeps coffee in the lead. The official IBA recipe is a useful reference point, but with a sweet liqueur and its full 10ml of syrup it can taste too sweet for a modern palate. Official does not mean untouchable.

A good one hits you with fresh coffee aroma first, then a bittersweet opening, cold and silky on the tongue, with the vodka present but clean rather than raw. Underneath there can be dark chocolate, roast and caramel, and the sweetness should be restrained enough that the finish is dry and you genuinely want the next sip. On top sits a fine, persistent tan foam that holds the beans. It should taste of coffee and dark sweetness, in that order, not of pudding.

The warning signs are just as clear. If it tastes like a milkshake, there is too much liqueur or syrup. If it looks thin and pale brown rather than dark with a proper crema, the coffee was too weak or too diluted. Big soap-like bubbles, a foam cap that vanishes at once, a warm center, a raw vodka burn or watery coffee all mean something went wrong in the build or the shake. A great Espresso Martini is black, cold, strong and only just sweet.

Our house build is a descendant of the drink London bartender Dick Bradsell created in the 1980s. His later documented recipe, as recorded by Difford’s Guide, looked like this:

Note the two coffee liqueurs. That was not showing off. The Kahlúa and Tia Maria together built a bridge between neutral vodka, bitter coffee and sugar, rounding the drink out rather than making it taste loudly of one branded bottle. Most modern builds, ours included, simplify to a single coffee liqueur and adjust the syrup instead. Here is how the main versions compare:

Vodka

Vodka is here for structure, alcohol and texture, not for a loud flavor, which is exactly why an expensive luxury bottle is wasted in this drink. A clean, full-strength vodka is all you need, and the coffee will bury most of what you paid extra for. Sensible choices include Ketel One, Absolut, Smirnoff, Stoli, Gray Goose and Belvedere; industry reporting still lists Ketel One, Gray Goose and Stoli among the vodkas poured most often for Espresso Martinis at leading bars, though there is no single universal winner without a proper side-by-side comparison. Flavoured vodka, vanilla especially, makes a variation, not the definitive classic.

Espresso

This is the ingredient that decides everything. A normal single shot is roughly 25 to 30ml, and you want it concentrated rather than a long, watery pull. A medium or medium-dark roast is usually easier to balance than a very bitter, burnt one, and the golden rule is simple: the coffee has to taste good on its own. Over-extracted espresso brings harsh bitterness; under-extracted tastes sour and thin. Freshness matters, but do not be fooled by crema alone, because a thick crema is not proof the coffee actually tastes good. Decaf espresso works perfectly well if you want the flavor without a late-night jolt.

Coffee liqueur

The liqueur should deepen the coffee, not replace it, and the one you choose changes how much syrup you need. Broadly: Kahlúa (20% ABV, Mexico) is the sweet, vanilla-tinged default and the bottle the drink was built around. Tia Maria (around 20%, rum-based) is a touch more nuanced and lightly spiced. Mr Black (25%, Australian cold brew) is drier and more coffee-forward, which drove the modern revival. Caffè Borghetti (around 25%, Italy) is intense, authentic espresso in a bottle. Galliano Espresso (around 30%) is drier again. Higher alcohol does not automatically mean better. Sweeter liqueurs need little or no added syrup; drier ones make a more adult drink but usually want a small measure of sugar to round them out. Confirm current bottlings where you shop, since ranges change.

Sugar syrup

Bradsell’s original included sugar to taste, and that principle still holds. A 1:1 simple syrup is equal parts sugar and water; a 2:1 rich syrup is double the sugar, so it sweetens with less dilution and adds a little body, which is why we favour it. Demerara brings a light caramel depth; maple, vanilla or honey syrups make deliberate variations. Sugar also improves texture, not just taste, but too much kills the dry finish that makes a second sip appealing. A practical scale: no syrup for a very dry build or a particularly sweet liqueur; 2.5ml for lightly sweetened; 5ml for the balanced house level; 7.5 to 10ml if you want it noticeably sweet or dessert-like.

Saline

A tiny amount of salt softens aggressive bitterness and sharpens the flavors, making the coffee and sweetness taste more integrated. Do not tip salt into the shaker. Make a solution instead: dissolve 20g of fine salt in 80g of water, and use just one or two drops per cocktail. It is optional, but once you have tried it you will understand why so many bartenders keep a dropper bottle behind the bar.

This is a genuine disagreement, not a settled question. One camp insists the espresso must be fully cooled so it does not melt the ice and over-dilute the drink. Another, including Difford’s Guide and accounts from the Bradsell family, argues that fresh, hot espresso protects the crema and simply makes a better drink. Both have a point, and the truth is in the nuance.

Hot espresso does increase the initial ice melt, but that does not automatically ruin anything. Fresh espresso brings aroma, dissolved solids and gas that help the texture and the foam, which is why we lean towards it. The trick is to manage the dilution: chill the other ingredients first, add the hot espresso last, then add plenty of hard, cold ice immediately and shake straight away rather than letting the tin sit warm. Fully chilled espresso gives more predictable dilution but often has less aroma and a weaker crema, and cold brew concentrate works but tastes and foams differently. Our position: use freshly pulled espresso. Add it after the chilled ingredients, pile in the ice at once and shake hard. There is no need to park the espresso in the fridge for an hour. Just do not imagine the temperature difference alone is what creates the foam, because it is not.

The foam is built by aeration during the shake and stabilised by compounds in the coffee itself. Coffee science attributes espresso foam largely to soluble proteins and polysaccharides, which help the bubbles form and hold, while coffee oils play a more complicated role and can actually work against stability in some conditions. So ignore the popular myth that “coffee oil makes the foam”. It is the shake plus those soluble compounds doing the heavy lifting. In practice, that means the recipe: good, concentrated coffee shaken hard makes foam, and weak coffee shaken gently does not.

The practical variables, in order of how much they matter: use concentrated espresso or coffee concentrate; use enough ice; use hard, fresh ice rather than half-melted freezer debris; do not overfill the shaker, and leave empty volume for the liquid to aerate; shake hard for about 15 to 20 seconds; fine-strain immediately; pour into a clean, grease-free glass; let the foam settle before adding the beans; and keep cream, oil and fatty ingredients out of the classic version, because fat kills foam. Do you need a dry shake (shaking without ice first)? For a classic Espresso Martini, usually not. A forceful normal shake with good coffee and enough shaker space builds all the head you need. Aquafaba is a deliberate variation or an emergency fix for weak coffee, not a requirement for a properly made classic.

One myth to drop: three beans floating does not prove the drink is technically perfect. It proves the foam is stable enough to hold three small beans, which is not quite the same thing.

Large, hard cubes straight from a cold freezer give more controlled dilution than small, wet, half-melted ice, which waters the drink down fast. That said, you still need enough ice to chill the shaker quickly, and the lazy rule that “more ice means more dilution” is not always true, because a fuller shaker of hard ice can actually reach cold faster and melt less overall. Old freezer ice can carry stale aromas, so use fresh. Crushed ice is wrong for this method: it melts too quickly. And remember the drink is served straight up, without any ice in the glass. The real variables are shaking time, the ice temperature and size, and how much surface water it is carrying, so start with hard, dry cubes and a firm 15 to 20 second shake.

No, though it is the benchmark. Ranked from best to worst: fresh espresso is the standard for aroma, concentration and the classic look. Moka pot coffee is a very good stand-in, but use a small, concentrated amount, not a whole weak mug. An AeroPress made as a strong concentrate (less water, more coffee) is a good option too. Cold brew concentrate, not ordinary ready-to-drink cold brew, is convenient but softer, less aromatic and less bitter, and it foams differently. High-quality instant espresso, dissolved more concentrated than you would for a normal cup, is a fair emergency. Ordinary filter coffee is the weak link, usually too watery unless you concentrate it hard. As Serious Eats puts it, fresh espresso is best, a moka pot is a sound alternative, and cold-brew concentrate is the most convenient but least ideal of those for flavor and foam.

The drink is the work of Dick Bradsell, the bartender at the center of London’s 1980s cocktail revival. By his daughter Bea Bradsell’s account, the first version was made at the Soho Brasserie on Old Compton Street in the mid-1980s, on a newly installed illy espresso machine, when a customer asked him for something that would both wake her up and get her drunk. Bea links the moment to the nearby filming of the David Bowie film Absolute Beginners, which places it around 1985, though some accounts say 1983 and point to other venues such as Fred’s Club, so the record is genuinely a little tangled rather than tidy. As for who that customer was, the truth is better than the myth, and we come to it next.

Vodka was the fashionable spirit of the moment, so the original was a Vodka Espresso, served on the rocks. Over the following years Bradsell refined it, and in the 1990s, as bartenders took to serving vodka drinks straight up in V-shaped glasses and calling them Martinis, it took the shape we know. Along the way it picked up other names, including the Pharmaceutical Stimulant, associated with Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy restaurant in Notting Hill, and it later appeared at bars like Match and El Camion. Bea Bradsell is clear that the drink was refined over years rather than perfected in a single instant, and its huge global comeback, powered in part by Australia’s third-wave coffee culture, came decades after that first pour.

It is not just nostalgia; the numbers are real. Industry data has Espresso Martini orders up around 300% since 2022, the drink has passed two billion views under its TikTok hashtag, and Forbes reported searches climbing about 89% among Gen Z in 2024 and reaching roughly 1.3 million a month by early 2025. In some surveys it leapt from around 2% of cocktails ordered to about 15% between 2022 and 2024, and it is now so entrenched that people order it in bars where it is not even on the menu.

Why now? Several things landed at once. Coffee culture went global, led by Australia’s obsession with good espresso, which is where the drink quietly kept its biggest following through the lean years. A wave of newer, drier coffee liqueurs made it genuinely better to drink than the sugary 2000s version. It photographs beautifully, because that dark body, pale foam and trio of floating beans is tailor-made for a phone camera. It carries a caffeine hit that says the night is not over. And bars adore it, because at roughly $15 to $22 a glass it is one of the most profitable drinks on the list. The flip side of the hype is the 2026 wave of “Espresso Martini 2.0” spin-offs, towers, flights, and tiramisu, chai and oat-milk versions, most of which are content first and drink second. Our advice is simple: ignore the gimmicks and make the classic properly. It earned its comeback on the strength of the original, not the novelties.

Strictly, it is not a Martini at all: a Martini contains gin or vodka and vermouth, and this has neither vermouth nor gin. The name is a product of the 1990s fashion for calling almost any vodka cocktail served straight up in a V-shaped glass a “Martini”. It has gone by several names over the years, the Vodka Espresso, the Neo-Martini, the Pharmaceutical Stimulant and finally the Espresso Martini, which is the one that stuck. There is no point arguing the name is invalid. Cocktail language evolves, and the Espresso Martini has more than earned its place.

The three beans borrow from the Italian tradition of serving Sambuca “con la mosca”, with the fly, where three coffee beans are floated in the glass. They are commonly said to represent health, wealth and happiness. Bea Bradsell links the Espresso Martini garnish directly to that tradition, and Difford’s gives the same explanation. The key point is that the beans are symbolic and decorative: the drink will not fail because you only have one bean, or none. They look good and they are a nice nod to history, nothing more.

Use a small chilled coupe or a Nick & Nora. Both keep the drink compact, are far easier to carry without a spill, and show off the foam. The V-shaped Martini glass is the drink’s historic 1990s look and perfectly fine, but it is not technically required and it slops everywhere the moment you move. Avoid the oversized Martini glass entirely: a giant bowl forces you to double the recipe just to fill it, which is how you end up with a huge, over-sweet drink. Small and chilled is the answer. Our guide to the right glass for every drink has more if you are building a home bar.

Stronger than it tastes, which is the trap. Here is the transparent maths on the house recipe. The 50ml of vodka at 40% contributes about 20ml of pure alcohol. The 15ml of coffee liqueur at around 20% adds roughly another 3ml. The espresso, syrup and saline add about 35ml of non-alcoholic liquid, so before dilution you have roughly 100ml of liquid carrying about 23ml of alcohol, which is around 23% ABV. Shaking then adds something like 20 to 30ml of water from the melting ice, bringing the finished drink down to somewhere around 18 to 20% ABV. That is an approximation, not a fixed figure, because vodka strength, liqueur and dilution all move it. The headline: the coffee and sweetness make it dangerously easy to drink, but it carries roughly the alcohol of a double measure of spirits. Treat it with respect.

About one espresso shot’s worth, plus a little from the liqueur. A 30ml espresso is usually estimated at around 60 to 65mg of caffeine, and the National Coffee Association cites USDA data of roughly 63mg per one-ounce shot, though beans, dose and extraction move that figure around. Coffee liqueurs add some more, but the amount varies by producer, so any single precise total would be false precision. If you want the flavor without a late-night dose, use decaf espresso, which makes an excellent drink. One responsible note worth keeping in mind: caffeine may reduce drowsiness, but it does not sober you up or reverse any of the impairment from the alcohol. A caffeinated cocktail can feel less drunk than it is.

Batching the whole finished drink hours ahead is the classic mistake: you lose the aroma and the foam, and you end up pouring flat coffee cocktails from a jug. The fix is to batch only the stable parts. For six drinks, combine 300ml vodka, 90ml coffee liqueur, about 30ml rich syrup and 12 drops of saline. For twelve drinks, double it: 600ml vodka, 180ml coffee liqueur, about 60ml syrup and 24 drops of saline. Keep that mixture refrigerated, then add the coffee and the shake to order.

You then have two service options. The better-quality method: pull fresh espresso in manageable batches shortly before serving, and shake individual drinks or two at a time with ice. The faster method: use a properly made, pre-chilled cold-brew concentrate and shake each serving with ice. Either way, a few rules hold. Do not just pour a pre-batched mix into glasses, because shaking is still required for the aeration and dilution. Do not cram four or five drinks into one small shaker; two per shaker is a sensible maximum for most sizes. Test the batch before guests arrive, and account for how sweet your chosen liqueur is. Busy bars often use cold brew for speed, but plenty of bartenders still prefer fresh espresso for its body and foam. That is a service trade-off, not a moral rule.

Partly. You can pre-batch the alcoholic ingredients, the vodka, coffee liqueur, syrup and saline, and keep them refrigerated for convenience, but the finished drink should still be shaken with fresh coffee and ice immediately before serving. The coffee and the foam are what suffer if you make the whole thing ahead. Keep any pre-batch chilled and sealed, and treat fresh espresso as a make-to-order ingredient rather than something to store for days. Do not try to keep mixed espresso cocktails hanging around for weeks: this is a fresh drink, and it rewards being made fresh.

Keep these in perspective: the classic is the point, and not every coffee cocktail is an Espresso Martini. A few worthwhile adaptations:

Cream-based versions, Baileys and the like, are richer dessert drinks rather than the classic. And do not confuse the drink with a Carajillo, the Spanish and Mexican mix of coffee and a spirit such as Licor 43. It is a related coffee cocktail with its own identity, not a simplified Espresso Martini. For another modern classic built properly rather than sweetened into submission, see our guide to the bourbon Old Fashioned.