This week’s cocktail is for a very special person who happens to like espresso martinis. My daughter is a kind, smart, beautiful person whose deep, beautiful blue eyes can shoot an annoyed look that would stop a runaway truck. When my wife and I moved back to West Virginia in late 2021, she eventually followed and has made Appalachia her home. She works with children who have extreme intellectual and social difficulty — her day-to-day truly takes a special kind of person.

We met when she was still a girl, and somehow I made it past her skepticism. She taught me that girls can be messy (something I somehow had never fathomed), the relief of screaming into the void to purge oneself of stress (a technique I have now occasionally adopted), the value of saying “no” early and often, and to enjoy the present and the people in it. I admire her. We are confidants, friends, buddies, and plotters together.

In my house, we throw raucous dinner parties that necessitate Chatham House Rules at every Equinox and Solstice. During the Winter Solstice, I had made a dulce de leche liqueur that my daughter really enjoyed. So today, we’re combining that liqueur in her favorite drink. I might never have thought to do this if not for a 2025 visit to Argentina with some friends, where dulce de leche is everywhere. Thus is born the Mendoza Martini. So, let’s lift one of these to a kind, loving person who is giving a significant portion of herself to making the world a better place. Happy birthday, Lauryn!

First, the Dulce de Leche Liqueur. To be clear, you could certainly buy the dulce de leche. But why? This is the Appalachian Speakeasy. We don’t buy such things. Start with the rum and vanilla beans. Add the rum to a roomy jar, then split and scrape the vanilla beans. Add them and let them tincture for 3–5 days, depending on how much vanilla you’d like. I used two beans here, but I’ve used a lot more. I like a lot of vanilla flavor and aroma. Then, filter the tincture through a coffee filter or fine-strain it if you don’t mind the little vanilla seeds floating around (vanilla-bean ice-cream style). This is enough vanilla rum that you’ll have a bit extra for other projects.

This recipe for dulce de leche comes from Andrew Schloss’ Homemade Liqueurs and Infused Spirits (2013). I highly recommend it. With your oven preheated to 425°F, pour the condensed milk into a glass baking dish and stir in the salt. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Place this dish in a roasting pan with water halfway up the sides of the glass baking dish. Do not let the tin foil touch the water. Bake this until tan to deeply brown. Schloss called for 1 hour, but it took me a bit longer. Once done baking, remove, allow to cool, and whisk until silky. Add this mixture to 2 ¼ cups of the vanilla-infused rum. Walla! Dulce de leche liqueur. The liqueur keeps really well in the refrigerator, so you can do this way ahead of time.

Now for the cocktail. Chill your glass until frigid. This drink is spec’d as a bigger drink, cause She of the Blond Strands deserves a bit extra today. This is a shaken cocktail - we’d like to work a bit of air into the drink and make it light and fluffy. Add all ingredients, sans garnish, in half your tin, then load the other half with ice. Bring these together for a shake. Fine-strain into your glass and gently grate the Tonka bean over the top. Note they are prone to having a bigger chip or two. Don’t worry about this. Enjoy!

This cocktail is, of course, a riff on an espresso martini. As such, it’s easy to take it in that direction. There are three main ways to do so. The first is your base spirit. The classic spec calls for vodka. I’ve used vanilla vodka here because it’s a chance to utilize the DIY vanilla vodka we made for the Birds and the Bees cocktail — see the link for that recipe — and because my daughter has a strong preference for vodka. You can, however, substitute an aged rum (or even a dark rum) or a Cognac for the base spirit. This will deepen the flavor and add notes of molasses, fruit, and spice to the drink. Using the dulce de leche liqueur is essentially a split base, though the dulce de leche tones down the stronger rum notes, and we use it here to carry tons of vanilla flavor to the party (again, something my daughter and I really appreciate).

The second way to alter the drink is in the liqueur. Dick Bradsell’s original Espresso Martini contained both Kahlua and Tia Maria, both coffee liqueurs made from rum (again, adding a different flavor note). Kahlua is sweeter, rounder, and provides a more luxurious textural experience than what modern bartenders tend to use - Mr. Black coffee liqueur. Mr. Black is made from high-quality cold brew and elevates the coffee notes more than Kahlua. The result is a thinner, sharper, deeper coffee flavor. The other possibility is Tia Maria, which is more like Kahlua than like Mr. Black. Subbing any of these for the dulce de leche liqueur will give you a different drink, especially in being more coffee-forward.

The third option is the coffee. These days, there is a dizzying array of coffee varieties to try, with regional flavor profiles from the southern hemisphere, as well as cross-regional profiles that blend floral, earthy, nutty, and fruity notes. That discussion goes a great way beyond the purposes here. Suffice it to say, choose a coffee that you like to drink. I’m a tea guy predominantly, so I am more bereft of opinions here than my readers would normally expect.

I like the touch of chocolate that the Aztec Chocolate bitters add here, but you certainly don’t need them to enjoy this one. These add a tiny touch of spice with the cinnamon and chili they contain. They hang out in the background here, breaking the cacophony of velvet from the dulce de leche, vanilla, and caramel flavors.

The garnish above may not be easy for everyone to procure. Tonka bean has a deeply cherry-almond-vanilla flavor profile. If you can’t find a Tonka bean (which will have vanilla, almond, and caramel notes), shaved or grated dark chocolate works great over the top of the drink. Dark chocolate works a bit better than milk chocolate because the aromatics are a little more pungent and stand up to the other aromas. You could also garnish with coffee beans, as is traditional for an espresso martini—one bean each for health, wealth, and happiness. Ground cacao (the stuff of chocolate) is also a great garnish sprinkled over the top. And, it occurs to me that a dusting of cinnamon would also be nice in both aroma and flavor.

I guess I’ll do the regular old Espresso Martini eventually. I’d love to see more creativity from great bartenders around using tea in cocktails. I know it works well, because a spate of punch recipes use tea to balance other flavors. Help me think about that and leave a note below.