A jolt and a nightcap in one glass: cold espresso shaken hard with vodka, coffee liqueur and a whisper of sugar until it pours out silky and tawny, crowned with crema and three beans afloat. It drinks like a White Russian with fresh espresso where the cream would be — bittersweet, bracingly caffeinated, and leaner and colder than its velvet surface suggests.
Garnish: Coffee Beans
Shaken · Coupe · Up
add
Pour vodka, coffee liqueur, simple syrup, and the fresh espresso shot into a cocktail shaker.
shake
Add ice and shake hard until very cold and well-aerated — the vigorous shake builds the signature foam crema.
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass, served up with no ice.
garnish
Float three coffee beans on the foam.
Dick Bradsell, a London bartender, came up with the drink in 1983 while working at the Soho Brasserie, mixing it for a customer who asked to be woken up and then undone. He called his creation the Vodka Espresso, and the martini label only arrived later, when London fell for martini-named drinks during the 1990s. Today it holds a place among the IBA's official cocktails in the New Era category.