Local bartenders rely on brews, liqueurs, and sometimes even a real espresso. Photograph by Amber Fouts.

Cris Elford grabbed an ice-cold cocktail shaker and used all the power of his bartender to be more enthusiastic than usual. All this hard work produced a drink with a pearly brown shade, reminiscent of root beer floats. He poured it into the coupe and put three carefully placed coffee beans on the foam cover. His creation should be a cocktail, equivalent to kicking your Skechers while watching Friends episodes while crushing Arch Deluxe.

"It's more old-fashioned than what you drink now," he said of the espresso martini sold at Trade Winds Tavern. Elford and his business partner Anu Apte transformed Belltown Bar into a 1980s basement entertainment room. Big Buck Hunter games and supersonic memorabilia sparkle in their own nostalgic form, but the espresso martini is powered by memories of the 1990s.

Eastern media has documented the return of cocktails for some time. This summer, the New York Times considered it "ubiquitous," and the spirit of the times triggered follow-up reports on how bartenders hate making it. On a busy night of service, drinking a cup of espresso is a laborious episode; the combination of hot coffee and cold ice can make the cocktail shaker pop at untimely and potentially chaotic moments.

Seattle participated in the heyday of the espresso martini 30 years ago. How can we not? In that era, our city established the dominance of coffee and joined the vanguard of the craft cocktail movement. "Is anyone really ready to drink a Seattle espresso martini?" The Seattle Times praised it in an article written in 1997 about Tini Bigs, which was a new bar specializing in extra-large drinks at the time. (Their 10-ounce version also has the classic three-bean decoration.) The origin of this drink can be traced back to the late 1980s with a British bartender named Dick Bradsell. As he said, a model approached him one night and asked: "Can you make me a drink that can wake me up and then screw me up?"

Seattle is participating in the revival of espresso martinis, and there is very little real espresso.

Now, it seems that we are going to participate again. Customers of Linda Derschang's Oddfellows asked for this drink in droves, even if it was not on the menu. This popularity reminds Derschang of the drink’s first launch in the late 1990s, when she owned the Capitol Club on Pine—"We sold 1 million cosmos and espresso martinis. "These days, her all-day cafe orders Caffe Vita photos. The result is a satisfying foam cover that does contain the round richness and deep tone of a true midday espresso.

At the foot of the mountain, Pho Bac's new cocktail Xanadu Phocific Standard Time serves a crumbling cocktail carol ca phe trung, a Vietnamese sweet but pistol-flavored custard coffee. In Roquette, a dimly lit and very authentic Belltown cocktail bar, owner Erik Hakkinen plays with a variety of coffee drinks, from "darkness and contemplation" to tropical improvisations with passion fruit or pineapple. He found that customers prefer pure espresso martinis—"We probably sold 30 of them last night."

Artusi bar manager Tahlia Bolden infused vodka with Herkimer coffee beans.

Roquette's version achieves the smoothness of coffee with a cold brewed liqueur from Australia called Mr. Black. Its entry into the United States a few years ago may have promoted the return of espresso martinis. Or at least let the bartender get rid of the shackles of the coffee machine. Elford's version in Trade Winds also used this-"We order according to the situation"-plus a little condensed milk and ordinary old drops. (Mr. Black, for its value, it tastes good and can be drunk directly on ice.)

In other words, Seattle participated in the martini's revival with very little real espresso.

Spinasse and the aperitif bar Artusi next door have their own espresso martini recipe-suitable for their Italian sincerity. The new bar manager, Tahlia Bolden, added Herkimer coffee beans to the vodka to create an Artusi version. According to her experience, "hot espresso will melt your ice, so the drink will be diluted in the shaker". Spinasse's recipe uses cold brew.

Bolden said, "Espresso Martini comes out every night" in two places. But after 11 years of working in Seattle, she questioned whether the drink has become popular again — or whether it has never left. "I think every bar here offers espresso martinis."

At Dreamland Bar and Diner in Fremont, manager Cera Grindstaff is not on the official menu, but offers a lot of services without using an espresso machine. Dreamland uses Absolut vanilla, cold brew espresso and Borghetti (an Italian espresso liqueur, from the same company as another bartender’s favorite Fernet) to make its version. Orders surged last year, and Grindstaff hopes to simplify the process further: “I actually want to add a cup of espresso martini to the nitro.”