Best cocktail shaker for an espresso martini

Most shaken drinks want one thing from the shake: heat exchange. Get the liquid cold, get the dilution right, strain. An espresso martini wants that plus aeration, because the head of crema on top is not decoration - it is a foam of air, coffee oils and the soluble proteins and melanoidins that espresso carries.

Foam needs three things: fresh espresso with its own oils still intact, enough air in the tin to whip in, and a shake violent enough to emulsify. The first is on you and your coffee. The second and third are what the shaker decides, and it is the reason a two-tin set beats a cobbler on this particular drink.

There is also a reason the crema fails that has nothing to do with the shaker: coffee that has been sitting. Espresso loses the oils that build a crema within a couple of minutes of extraction. If the drink comes out flat, pull the shot into the tin rather than into a cup first.

1. Headroom. A 28 oz large tin on an 18 oz small tin leaves real air space above the liquid and ice. Air space is the raw material of a crema; a shaker filled to the brim cannot build one.
2. A weighted base. Mass in the bottom of the tin lets you shake hard without the set working itself apart. The harder you can shake, the finer the bubble structure.
3. Stainless steel, cold-tolerant. Steel chills fast and takes a counter-edge tap without complaint. A glass-bottomed shaker in a hard espresso-martini shake is a bad combination.
4. A fine mesh strainer alongside the Hawthorne. Coffee carries fine sediment. A Hawthorne spring catches ice; it does not catch grounds. Double straining is the step that makes the drink feel professional.

1. Pull the espresso last and pour it hot into the tin. The oils that build the foam do not survive sitting in a cup.
2. Fill the large tin with ice, not a handful. Cold shock plus mechanical agitation is what emulsifies the oils. A half-empty tin warms up and whips nothing.
3. Shake hard for twelve to fifteen seconds. Longer than a daiquiri. You are listening for the sound to change as the ice breaks down and the liquid thickens.
4. Double strain through Hawthorne and fine mesh. Straight into a chilled coupe or Nick & Nora. Grounds and ice shards both get caught here.
5. Pour in one continuous motion. Stopping and restarting breaks the head. Let it settle for fifteen seconds before the three coffee beans go on.

A warm glass kills a crema faster than a bad shake does. Chill the glass in the freezer while you pull the shot - and note that an espresso martini is served up, so the glass choice matters: see cocktail glassware types and best coupe glasses.

A hard, long shake destroys weak ice. Hollow, wet cubes from a plastic freezer tray shatter into slush in the first four seconds, which over-dilutes the drink and leaves fine shards that slip past a Hawthorne and sit on top of your crema. Dense, dry cubes survive the shake and chill harder while doing it.

This is the cheapest upgrade available to anybody making this drink regularly, and it does not require buying a machine - see what size ice for a cocktail shaker for the sizing, and how to make clear ice for denser cubes out of the freezer you already have.

Buy the fine mesh strainer. It is the least expensive item here and it changes the drink more than swapping shakers does, because grit is the failure mode people actually notice. A perfectly shaken espresso martini served through a Hawthorne alone still has sediment in it.

If you are buying a shaker from scratch and this drink is a regular, buy the Koriko tins. If you want one shaker for everything on the bar and will take a thinner head, the OXO cobbler is the honest compromise - and best cocktail shakers covers the wider field. Best cocktail strainers covers the straining half in full.