Irish Espresso Martini

The espresso martini gets an Irish makeover — whiskey replaces vodka, a pour of Irish cream adds silky richness, and the result is the St. Patrick's Day cocktail bartenders are reaching for right now.

The Irish Espresso Martini adapts Dick Bradsell's defining 1980s London creation to Irish whiskey, replacing the original's vodka with a spirit whose grain warmth and light cereal sweetness interact with espresso in a distinctly different way. Bradsell created the Espresso Martini at the Soho Brasserie on Old Compton Street in London in the mid-1980s — the original request reportedly from a young woman who asked for something that would wake her up and then mess her up, a brief that Bradsell met with fresh espresso, vodka, coffee liqueur, and sugar syrup shaken cold and strained into a Martini glass. The cocktail became one of the most widely ordered drinks in the world, experiencing a particular commercial resurgence in the early 2020s driven by social media. The Irish whiskey substitution is logical for multiple reasons: Irish whiskey's triple-distilled smoothness prevents any harshness from competing with the espresso's roasted bitterness, its natural grain and light vanilla notes complement coffee in the same way that a well-made flat white benefits from gentle sweetness, and the addition of Irish cream liqueur — most commonly Baileys, launched in 1974 — introduces the dairy richness that connects the cocktail back to the Irish Coffee tradition that has existed since chef Joe Sheridan created it at Foynes in 1943.