How to Make a Chocolate Martini, the Decadent Cocktail That’s Brilliant When Done Right

Jason O'Bryan
·5 min read
3

Just how long has the Chocolate Martini been out of fashion?

Consider this: In October of 2000—about 10 months after the groundbreaking Milk & Honey opened in the Lower East Side, less than a year into the modern era of cocktails as we currently understand it—the New York Times ran a story about the new “Appletini” fad that was electrifying the city, and the writer, Rick Marin, opens his 1,000-word article like so: “The long sticky summer of the Chocolate Martini is at last behind us.”

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“At last,” he says. That’s how long the Chocolate Martini has been déclassé—long enough for the next big thing to emerge, itself become passé, then have an ironic renaissance, then have that renaissance also become passé. Over the last 20 years the disco drinks have been updated, one by one, to enjoy a cameo in our age of freshness and craft—the Amaretto Sour, the Bahama Mama, the Lychee Martini, the Purple Jesus—but notably absent from this is the Chocolate Martini, which remains such a pariah that most people won’t even say its name.

It’s entirely absent from the major cocktail books of the last 15 years, save for a historical explainer by David Wondrich. Even the big cocktail YouTubers don’t touch it. The content-hungry creators happy to talk about the AMF or the “Top 5 Long Island Iced Teas” or literally shoot a video about the Kelp Shake from Spongebob Squarepants are still too proud for a Chocolate Martini. The ones who do mention it take extra care to put some “mixology” on it, so will do things like call for artisanal sipping chocolate or sub vodka for genever or stir it with amontillado sherry or pretty much anything except for just making a Chocolate Martini. It’s as if to make or drink one axiomatically suggests you’re not a serious cocktail person.

This, obviously, is ridiculous. If it were chocolate, cream and brandy, we’d call it a Brandy Alexander and all pat ourselves on the back for our classic cocktail decadence, but sub brandy for vodka and now it’s beneath mentioning? Are we honestly to believe that a cocktail made of chocolate, cream and vodka isn’t delicious?

Please. While the Chocolate Martini isn’t going to win you cool points with your local mixologists, it’s a pretty great drink for, say, Valentine’s Day, or any other day when you prefer your desserts to be both liquid and punchy. Yes, of course it’s possible to make the Chocolate Martini oversweet and gross but take a little care in your ingredients and preparation, and your Chocolate Martini can be both sweet and strong, with a lovely rich depth from the cacao and enough of a boozy backbone to dry it out and keep you coming back for more.

Chocolate Martini

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake hard for 10 seconds. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with shaved chocolate, a chocolate rim, a piece of chocolate, a marshmallow, or honestly nothing at all.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Ketel One
Ketel One

Vodka: As mentioned, this cocktail with Brandy is called a Brandy Alexander, and with gin is just an Alexander. It’s also, like its cold weather sibling the Boozy Hot Chocolate, pretty great with tequila, aged tequila especially. You can honestly use any spirit you like.

The reason we’re sticking with vodka for the above recommendation is twofold. First, this is a Chocolate Martini, and vodka is what’s in it. But more importantly, the lack of flavor of vodka essentially turns this drink into an acapella solo for the creme de cacao, and if you’re using a good brand (and you should be), this has charms all its own. Other spirits make wonderful versions too, but never with quite the same clarity. As for brands of vodka, it doesn’t much matter. Our favorite in our blind taste test was the St. George APV, but with this much chocolate and cream, really anything would work. Also, lots of recipes call for vanilla vodka, which isn’t bad, but I don’t prefer it for the same reason I don’t prefer additional chocolate sauce, which is that it makes it more dessert-y but I miss the clarity more than I like what it adds.

Creme de Cacao: Cacao comes in two forms, the “white” and the “dark.” These are not just different in color, but in flavor as well—the “white” is a distillate of the cacao bean, so it’s the lighter floral aspects of chocolate, while the “dark” is a deeper, richer, more intense chocolate experience. For me, and the above recipe, go dark. The standout producer here is Tempus Fugit, which I couldn’t recommend higher, and is so much better than the standard brands it’s worth some extra effort to get a bottle.

Cream: Lots of recipes call for Bailey’s here, but that feels more like an artifact of the ‘90s (when bars didn’t have fresh cream but always had Bailey’s) more than it does a specific flavor call. Fresh cream is better.I like half & half for drinks like this, but feel free to scale the richness up or down, or use your favorite milk alternative, as desired. Be advised: Fat is a very effective sweetness absorber, so if you use heavy cream, you might need a touch more cacao, and if you use skim milk, you’ll need less.

Other Ingredients: In this space, we try to recommend the best version of a particular cocktail that is feasible to make at home, which is not the same thing as the best version possible. I say that to say this: I mostly found other ingredients like chocolate syrup or chocolate bitters to be more distracting than not, but in my tests, I think a barspoon (~1/8oz) of Copalli Cocao Rum made the drink about 10 percent better. Obviously, I would insist on it if I were to put it on a cocktail menu, but for at home, I don’t know that I can say it’s worth it to track down a bottle. I just wanted you to know.

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