Recipes
Espresso Martini, two ways
The first version is the classic with A’peel Vodka. The second splits the vodka with Rising Sun, our coffee cane spirit, which does the work of the coffee liqueur and takes the drink a shade drier.
Ingredients
- 45 mL A’peel Vodka (or 30 mL A’peel Vodka and 30 mL Rising Sun for the second version)
- 30 mL fresh espresso, cooled for a minute
- 15 mL coffee liqueur (leave it out of the Rising Sun version)
- 5 mL sugar syrup (1:1), to taste
- Three coffee beans
Method
- Pull the espresso first so it has a minute to cool.
- Shake everything hard with plenty of ice for a good 15 seconds; the foam comes from the shake.
- Double strain into a chilled coupe and float three coffee beans on the foam.
Where it comes from
Dick Bradsell made the first one at the Soho Brasserie in London in 1983, for a customer who asked for something to wake her up. Vodka, fresh espresso, coffee liqueur and sugar, shaken until it foamed. It has been on and off the fashionable lists ever since and has outlived most of them.
A’peel Vodka is distilled from fruit peel and carbon filtered through recycled coconut husk, which leaves a soft spirit with a faint citrus finish that sits under the coffee rather than fighting it. Rising Sun is cane spirit infused with cold-drip coffee, pimento, cacao and cinnamon at a full 40%, so in the second version it adds coffee depth without the sugar of a liqueur. If you like the drink sweeter, keep the 5 mL of syrup; if you like it bitter, leave it out.