When Michelle Gainey and I decided to have an Italian inspired dinner, I knew that it was finally time to open the gorgeous bottle of grappa that my husband and I brought back from Italy. I decided to make a Grappa Espresso Martini because after a long evening with kids and family entertaining, I knew that Michelle and I would want a little pick me up throughout the night. Hence the reason I decided to go with Espresso. In this post, I am going to show you how to make an easy Grappa Espresso Martini so that you can enjoy it in the comfort of your own home.

I feel that when you tell others that you’re planning a trip to Italy, everyone starts telling you about how much you should bring back cases of wine. This is mainly because the wine in Italy is considerably less expensive to purchase than purchasing in the United States. But, I must admit that I truly didn’t see what people were talking about. It was so funny because my husband and I asked for prices on cases of wine everywhere and nothing ever was low enough to justify the time and effort it would take to ship cases of wine back home.

We quickly decided to give up on our quest to bring home cases of wine in lieu of finding just two or three perfect bottles of wine or liquor. After dinner one evening, we were walking in Barga which is a beautiful village in the countryside of Tuscany. We went into a small store that was serving drinks. They mainly had wine, beer, and grappa. So naturally, I wanted the grappa since I had never heard of it. The young man who served us, explained that grappa is produced by the process of making Liquor out of the fermented berries that were used to produce wine. Luckily the young man was familiar with a lot of American culture and he quickly said that it was like the moonshine of Italy.

When using grappa in cocktails, you want to be very careful not to add too much. The taste can be a bit overbearing so, I suggest sticking to the measurements given.

Lastly, if you don’t have espresso available, you can use a dark roast coffee. You’re adding espresso liqueur, so that will give you what you need as far as caffeine.