Galliano Hot Shot

A Scandinavian layered shot of Galliano, hot coffee, and lightly whipped cream — cozy, indulgent, and deceptively simple.

The Galliano Hot Shot was created in 1987 by Swedish bartender Bosse Bergström during a coffee drink competition held in Stockholm. Bergström's original formula specified anisette liqueur, but Galliano — the tall-bottled Italian herbal liqueur produced in Livorno — was subsequently substituted and became the version that spread commercially. The drink is a layered preparation: hot coffee in the bottom of a shot glass topped with a float of Galliano, served with the instruction to drink the coffee through the liqueur, capturing both layers in a single gulp. Galliano's anise and vanilla aromatics interact with the hot coffee in a concentrated, intensely flavored shot. The drink became so popular in Sweden that it effectively transformed the country's relationship with Galliano: Swedish sales of the liqueur increased dramatically following the Hot Shot's spread through Swedish bars and nightlife in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, according to the Galliano brand's own account. The Swedish nightlife community embraced the Hot Shot so completely that it developed specific cultural rituals around it. Galliano itself was created in 1896 by Arturo Vaccari in Livorno, Italy, named for Major Giuseppe Galliano — an Italian military officer celebrated for his defense of Fort Enda Jesus in Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) during the First Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895-1896.