Dillon’s Cold Brew Espresso Martini (12.5%)

Welcome to Day 2 of RTD Week, today shifting from sunny and spritzy to sweet and boozy, as we turn our attention to the booming popularity of the Espresso Martini. As with all the reviews this week, in addition to the regular scoring system I will be offering my opinion on three separate elements of the drink: Sweetness, from very dry to liquid sugar; Booziness, from “does this have any alcohol” to fresh off the still; and Balance, the relationship of the former to the latter. 

The Espresso Martini is without question the drink of the 2020s thus far, so booming in popularity that even many ‘serious’ cocktail bars feel the need to have some riff on the theme on their menus. That said, I must confess to not being a huge fan of the drink, finding most to be overly sweet and simplistic. But let’s see what Ontario’s Mark Anthony Group-owned Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers can do.

The list of ingredients in this does not include any coffee, neither espresso nor filtered nor even natural coffee flavouring, the distillery apparently content to instead leave it to its proprietary coffee liqueur to do the heavy lifting. I must say that I do find this quite odd and possibly a bit deceptive, since the name clearly implies the inclusion of cold brew coffee.

Light to medium brown in colour, there is certainly a lot of coffee in its aroma, medium roast drip rather than intense espresso, but unquestionably coffee. It is supported by sugar, which yields mocha-ish notes, but there is not a whole lot else to the nose.

The palate entry is pure Sugar in the Raw, those brown packets of semi-refined sugar that were omnipresent in restaurants back in the 1990s. (And a quick Google search reveals still exist, even if I can’t recall seeing one for well over a decade.) Such sweetness is, however, soon joined by the coffee liqueur flavours, which remain quite sweet but at least add a coffee aspect to the drink. I note the vodka component only on the slightly boozy finish, although with so much brown sugar sweetness going on, that’s hardly surprising.

If you are one for Espresso Martinis, I imagine this might serve as a reasonable substitute for the hassle of brewing espresso and shaking it with vodka and Kahlua, ahem, Tia Maria. But for those of us looking for a bit more balance and complexity in our drinks, the Dillon’s version misses the mark by a fair degree.

Sweetness (out of 10): 8

Booziness (out of 10): 4

Balance (out of 10): 3

Overall (out of 100): 64 ($3.50 - $5/222 ml)