Espresso Martini

London, 1983, the Soho Brasserie. Dick Bradsell — the quiet revolutionary who would rebuild British bartending — was working a station squeezed next to a coffee machine when a young model asked for something to “wake me up, and then f*** me up.” Vodka met fresh espresso and coffee liqueur in a shaker, and the Vodka Espresso was born, its origin story fully formed and unprintable in equal measure.

The rename was pure fashion. In the 1990s everything served in a V-shaped glass became a something-tini, and Bradsell’s creation — briefly rebadged “Pharmaceutical Stimulant” at Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy bar — settled into the name that stuck, despite containing no gin, no vermouth, and no apologies. The identity of the model has been gossiped about for forty years; Bradsell, gentleman to the end, never said.

“Wake me up, and then f*** me up.”

— The anonymous model’s request, Soho, 1983

It should have dated like the decade that named it. Instead, the 2010s revival made it the fastest-rising order in the world — the drink of the long dinner’s second wind — and Bradsell, who died in 2016 having also invented the Bramble, was canonized as the godfather of the London cocktail renaissance. The three beans on the crema, borrowed from the Sambuca ritual, wish you health, wealth and happiness. The espresso underneath makes its own promises.