The espresso martini is a cocktail name familiar to all but the most inexperienced of drinkers, but it wasn’t always known as such. Invented by Dick Bradsell back in 1983 during his tenure at the Soho Brasserie, it was originally christened the “Vodka Espresso.” Cocktail legend has it that a young, future supermodel sidled up to the bar and asked Dick to make her a cocktail with coffee. He mixed her drink using vodka, sugar, coffee liqueur, and a shot of espresso, pulled from the coffee machine next to his station. It’s a story that has helped the drink retain an edginess that many modern cocktails have failed to replicate. Dick was the shining light of the London bar scene in this decade, and you might recognize his other creations; Bramble, Russian Spring Punch and Treacle. It was soon renamed as the Pharmaceutical Stimulant during Dick’s time at London bar The Pharmacy, and then back to Vodka Espresso when Dick became Match Bar EC1’s opening Head Bartender. However, drinks have a life of their own once they become popular, and the tendency in the late nineties for giving anything in a martini glass the suffix “martini” (Chocolate, Watermelon, Apple – take your pick), meant that it soon passed into the public consciousness as the Espresso Martini.