I Claim To Hate Espresso Martinis, but I Can't Stop Thinking About Them
I Claim To Hate Espresso Martinis, but I Can't Stop Thinking About Them
Plus more thoughts on why the intersection of coffee and drinks culture continues to fascinate me.
But first, a quick note: A lot is happening right now, but some things remain immutable. Free Palestine. Please vote. Check your city’s COVID numbers, wear a mask, and protect others. (I teach and go to school in a mask!)
I’m convinced Ina Garten is trying to troll me.
More than once this week, a video of everyone’s favorite culinary goddess has popped up on my feed, featuring Garten making a batch of espresso martinis.
While this particular video is showing up now because it was filmed with Halloween in mind, I can’t ignore the fact that Instagram feeds me content based on my algorithm. I must accept responsibility and acknowledge that the problem is me: The algorithm knows I want more espresso martinis.
I’ve written before about how I hate coffee-flavored foods and drinks, and explicitly called out the espresso martini. I love coffee—but I fundamentally believe coffee ruins most other things, because the flavor is incredibly powerful and distinctive. All you taste in anything coffee-flavored is, well, coffee. And yet, despite being the main tasting note, coffee as an ingredient is typically treated as an afterthought. Not only is the coffee flavor overpowering, but it’s often mediocre at best.
But this summer, I found myself pitching a story to the Cap Times about local riffs on espresso martinis. I went around the city and tasted a handful of stupidly delicious espresso martinis from some of the nation’s best bartenders (Madison is a cocktail city, friends!). As I delved deeper into the nation’s it-girl cocktail, I began to wonder if my aversion was misguided.
In my espresso martini story, I reconnected with cocktail expert and author Robert Simonson, who I’d interviewed a few years ago for Taste. One of the theories he posited about the espresso martini’s revival was that coffee culture had exploded since the drink was first invented in the 1980s. Today’s drinkers have far more options for making the coffee base of the cocktail, like pour-over set-ups and cold brew.
But that doesn’t explain why I’m obsessed with this drink—or with the intersection of coffee and drinks culture in general. I think it might have to do with the longstanding “wine analogy” many coffee people lean on: Think “coffee tasting notes are like wine,” or “coffee plants are like wine grapes—they grow in high altitudes and benefit from being ‘stressed.’” (I’m not sure if that last part is even true—in fact, everything we’re learning about how coffee performs under temperature fluctuations due to climate change would indicate otherwise—but this is absolutely a thing I have been told and have told others.)
For years, it’s felt like coffee hasn’t earned the status and prestige that other beverages have. It’s often dismissed or made the butt of jokes, with critics (rightly) associating cafes with gentrification and (wrongly) admonishing Millennials for not being able to afford homes because of their latte habits.
So perhaps my aversion was also protective. “Oh, we weren’t good enough to be included among so-called fancy drinks before, but now you like us?” Take, for example, the James Beard Awards, which recognize hospitality venues with exceptional drinks programs and bar managers who curate beautiful wine menus. But coffee doesn’t show up anywhere in the award categories. Coffee is also absent from most food media, or at least not given the same attention as other beverages. Recently, in a bookstore, I was struck by how many beer, wine, and spirits books there were—and how few coffee books.
My growing fascination with the espresso martini—and other coffee-infused beverages—might also be spurred by mythology. When I reported on coffee beers, I think I accidentally discovered that Dan Carey, the co-founder of Wisconsin’s New Glarus Brewing Company, was the first person to put coffee in beer. (I still need to investigate this further to be certain.) The espresso martini itself has a saucy origin story, one that feels too salacious to be true: Legend has it that a model walked into a London bar helmed by legendary bartender Dick Bradsell and asked for a drink that would “wake me up and fuck me up.”
Garten’s introduction to her riff on the espresso martini is much gentler: The video starts with her asking, “Espresso martinis: Doesn’t that sound like a great idea?” She’s shown making a batch for a party, and her recipe calls for two cups of orange-flavored vodka, two cups of espresso made in the largest Moka pot I’ve ever seen (as a flex, she uses decaf beans), and one cup of coffee liqueur.
Even though I know better—I’ve interviewed dozens of bartenders who have made ever-more delicious riffs on this drink—I was so tempted to make Ina’s. At the end of the clip, she’s seen serving espresso martinis to Halloween party attendees while explaining what the drink is, which seems laughable in 2024.
Maybe my aversion isn’t really about dislike at all—like when two characters in a rom-com pretend to hate each other but are secretly in love. Maybe if I just give in, I’ll find my happily-ever-after with the espresso martini. But for now, I’m content with continuing to explore the paradoxes of the beverage industry—and continuing to regard everyone’s favorite cocktail with a healthy dose of skepticism.