Given my love of Aggie, cocktails and puns was there ever a world where I was not going to make a Murder on The Orient Espresso Martini?  And yes, in my head I call her Aggie.  I am sure Dame Agatha is turning in her grave at the thought!   But, once I started I could not stop!  Just like you might not be able to stop at just one of these delicious Espresso Martinis!

I have always been a bit wary of an Espresso Martini as I thought the caffeine would keep me awake.  Also, the last coffee flavoured cocktail I made was from Cantina and was disgusting.  It convinced me that I did not like coffee flavoured cocktails.  I now think that the awfulness of that cocktail was probably more due to the many problems with that book rather than an aversion to coffee cocktails per se.  I really enjoyed the Espresso Martini!!!  Drinking it felt  very luxuriant and sophisticated which ties in nicely with the glamour and opulence of the Orient Express.

Poirot might have sipped one instead of the luminous green cocktail he drinks in the film had they been invented back then!

Express Martini History

London bartender Dick Bradsell created the Espresso Martini in the 1980s. He mixed it up for a young model who asked him for something to “wake me up and f**k me up”  Rumour has it that the model was Kate Moss but this is unconfirmed!

It would however dovetail very nicely into my narrative as Kate Moss famously dated Johnny Depp in the 1990s. And he played Ratchett in the Kenneth Brannagh version of Murder on the Orient Express!

This brings us back to doh-oh-oh!

(Don’tcha love it when something works out so neatly!)

Espresso Martini – The Recipe

I used the recipe from 365 Days of Cocktails by Difford’s Guide.  The recipe on their website has a very intriguing sounding dash of salt solution in it which I really want to try!

Here’s the recipe I used:

The November book if you are reading along will be “Three Act Tragedy” which was actually written before Murder on the Orient Express but which I skipped in order to do the collab with Jenny.  Whilst it is not as well known as Murder it is a cracker of a read and unlike a few recent books is jammed full of food references.

Have a wonderful week and happy reading!