Espresso Martini Shot

A concentrated caffeine kick combining vodka with fresh espresso and coffee liqueur for the ultimate pick-me-up.

The Espresso Martini was created by Dick Bradsell at the Soho Brasserie on Old Compton Street in London's Soho neighborhood in the mid-1980s. Bradsell (1959-2016) was the central figure in London's craft cocktail revival, training a generation of bartenders who went on to shape the global industry. The origin story is a genuine one, documented by Bradsell himself in multiple interviews and confirmed by his daughter Beatrice: a young model walked into the Soho Brasserie during a particularly busy evening, with a newly installed espresso machine standing near Bradsell's station, and asked for a drink that would wake me up and then f*** me up. Bradsell improvised: a double shot of espresso from the machine, vodka, and simple syrup, shaken and poured over ice. He called it the Vodka Espresso. Bradsell's daughter has placed the creation around 1985, noting that the David Bowie film Absolute Beginners was being shot nearby at the time. The drink evolved through several incarnations over the following years. When Bradsell moved to Match bar, he served it straight up in a martini coupe and renamed it the Espresso Martini. A further reformulation for Damien Hirst's Pharmacy bar in Notting Hill in 1998 produced a third version named the Pharmaceutical Stimulant. The addition of coffee liqueur — Kahlúa and Tia Maria — became standard in later versions, replacing the original's simpler vodka-espresso-syrup formula. The drink experienced a massive global resurgence beginning around 2020 that has made it one of the most ordered cocktails in bars across Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.