There is a great and very convoluted story behind this drink. It was cooked up by the bartender Dick Bradsell who is credited as revolutionising the stagnant London cocktail scene of the 1980s.
The cocktail was invented when a young model walked into his bar sometime in 1983 (whether this was at Fred’s Bar or the Soho Brasserie is less than clear as Bradsell cited different places in different interviews). The overworked model, as the legend goes, asked for a drink that would ‘Wake me up and then Fuck me up.’
So Bradsell created a mixture of cold espresso coffee, vodka, liqueurs, and sugar syrup that did indeed fit that particular request. The choice of coffee was obviously for the hit of caffeine, and vodka was the most fashionable spirit at the time. Bradsell named the drink: Vodka Espresso.
The Vodka Espresso was very popular and, as is the fate of many classic cocktails, was adapted as drinking fashions changed. Bradsell had a play around with the ingredients and in 1990 rechristened it as an Espresso Martini, taking advantage of the popularity of martinis of any kind.
As his signature creation, Bradsell reworked the drink once more in the late twentieth century. This time the new formulation was for the Notting Hill restaurant, Pharmacy, which opened in 1998.
Pharmacy was started by the artist Damien Hirst along with Matthew Freud and Jonathan Kennedy. Under Hirst’s guiding hand the downstairs bar and restaurant area were decorated to look like a pharmacy with wall-to-wall glass cabinets and boxes of pills, suppositories and ointments piled high.The project was to create a restaurant and bar that was an entire piece of art, where customers would eat and drink within an art installation
But in actual fact, it looked so much like a legitimate pharmacy – at least from the outside with its automatic plate glass doors and its name spelled out in luminous green letters- that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain complained that it was potentially misleading. The RPS threatened legal action under section 78 of the Medicines Act (1968) which imposes restrictions on the use of the use of the description pharmacy ‘except in respects of a registered pharmacy or in respect of the pharmaceutical department of a hospital or a health centre.’
As a response, the popular and celebrity-packed restaurant changed its name on a regular basis using anagrams such as Army Chap and Achy Ramp before Pharmacy Restaurant and Bar was settled on. This was not an acceptable outcome in the eyes of the RPS but since it satisfied the law they were advised to drop the case.
Hirst, who had explored using medicine packaging in his art since the late 1980s – in fact, the design was inspired by Hirst’s 1992 artwork Pharmacy -seemed to have some real fun with the design. There were light installations, designed with Edward Barber, that looked like glass beakers, stained glass windows featuring pills, handprinted wallpaper based on the ‘Physician’s Desk Reference,’ skeletons, green cross brackets on the banister rails as well as salt and pepper shakers shaped like ampoules. Even the toilets were themed with a urinal that was a glass case filled with syringes plasters and rubber gloves.
The bar area continued with the medical references. The barstools -which were designed with the artist Jasper Morrison – looked like aspirins. And the staff were dressed in surgical gowns and lab coats designed by Miuccia Prada.
The medical theme was perfect for the naming of cocktails: you could order a Formalin Martini, a Voltarol Retarding Agent, and a Pharmaceutical Stimulant (Bradsell’s new version of the Vodka Espresso).
Bradsell died in 2016 of a brain tumour at the age of 56. Of his iconic (and durable) coffee-based creation, he was quoted as saying: ‘Lots of people have invented good drinks in the last 20 years – some are still around, some are forgotten. They have to be liked by the customer or have something memorable about them that makes somebody else want to make them. The Espresso Martini is a robust recipe, it can be played around with, altered in some way. One bar had about 15 variations on their menu, which is great.’
Pharmacy Restaurant and Bar closed in 2003 and, in an inspired move, Hirst bought everything – all the cutlery, menus, banister brackets, floorboards, even the matchbooks, and salt & pepper shakers – for £50,000. On 18 October 2004 the ephemera and fittings of an iconic restaurant, which had been dubbed ‘the high table of Cool Britannia’ went up for auction at Sotherby’s. All in all the sale achieved a total of over £11 million.
Ingredients
60 ml vodka
15 ml coffee liqueur
7.5 ml sugar cane syrup
45 ml espresso coffee (freshly made is best)
Equipment
Cocktail shaker
Served in a medical cup or an old fashioned glass
How to make this cocktail
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a glass. No garnish.