For a long time, coffee liqueur has been a quiet fixture on back bars – reliable and familiar, but rarely centre stage. The liquid has traditionally played a supporting role rather than claiming the spotlight, but that has shifted, largely thanks to the Espresso Martini. The cocktail recently ranked in fourth place in the Drinks International Cocktail Report 2025 and continues to see momentum, as does coffee liqueur. The category is benefiting from renewed bartender interest, premium innovation and wider consumer demand for coffee-forward flavours.

Driving growth

The Espresso Martini has “materially changed how coffee liqueur is perceived and used within the on-trade, moving it from a legacy digestive into a modern, high-velocity cocktail essential”, says Godelief van Erve, global marketing director at De Kuyper Royal Distillers, which offers its De Kuyper Crème de Café as part of its classic liqueur range.

Van Erve adds the cocktail has “effectively repositioned coffee liqueur as contemporary, commercially important and culturally relevant to younger cocktail drinkers”. She continues: “Coffee has shifted from being perceived as functional to indulgent and flavour-led.

“The Espresso Martini cocktail has been a key driver in bringing new energy and relevance to the coffee liqueur category. According to the IWSR, coffee liqueurs are showing a four-year CAGR of nearly 3.5% by volume, a solid performance given that total liqueurs grew by only a good 1% over the same period, underlining the cocktail’s impact on category growth.” 

Also noticing the renewed interest for coffee liqueur is French liqueurs brand Giffard, which produces a classic coffee liqueur and a premium version called Café du Honduras, made from a cold brew maceration of a pure origin Honduras Arabica.

Alexandre Robin, beverage innovation manager and France ambassador at Giffard, says when launching Café du Honduras in 2023: “We looked for what was trendy at the time and what would be good to do as we have done with our other premium liqueurs, which is elevating the taste and focusing on a single origin ingredient or a single variety.

“The Espresso Martini is such a big thing worldwide, so it spoke to us. Out of the liqueurs we offer, this one has the lowest amount of sugar, and this was something we wanted to focus on, making it less sweet. Other brands are much sweeter, so we wanted to offer something different. We focus primarily on bartenders, and every time we create a liqueur, we ask them to provide feedback. I think the Espresso Martini sits in the middle for us, we’re not creating liqueurs aimed at only one thing – we like to have versatility. The most important thing is the taste. Starting with the raw material is very important for us and focusing on the origin of the ingredient,” Robin continues.

Irene della Corte, global brand manager for Tia Maria, agrees, noting the appetite from consumers for “premium coffee experiences”, and how the brand is “well-positioned to ride this wave of momentum into the future”.

She says: “The choice of coffee liqueur [in an Espresso Martini] is crucial to achieving the right flavour profile, texture and overall harmony in the cocktail.

“A well-made Espresso Martini should have a rich coffee flavour, balanced sweetness and smooth texture, factors that depend heavily on the quality and characteristics of the coffee liqueur used.”

Della Corte adds: “The rise of the Espresso Martini has dramatically changed the perception of coffee liqueur in the on-trade among consumers. Tia Maria has had 18% volume growth in the past five years globally, so we’ve been able to carve out a strong position in the increasingly competitive market.”

Also seeing the growth in coffee liqueurs, with the assistance of the Espresso Martini is Luxardo.

The brand produces its Luxardo Espresso Liqueur, made through a long infusion (roughly 30 days) of selected coffee beans. “Rather than a generic sweet coffee liqueur, Luxardo’s aims to capture the true sensory experience of Italian espresso – intense, balanced, and unmistakably coffee forward. The infusion technique and choice of beans reinforce that authenticity. It is a hot brew, not a cold one like many others,” says export manager Matteo Luxardo.

“The category is still growing overall. Industry forecasts show the coffee liqueur market is projected to grow steadily over the next decade, with global market size expected to expand significantly at mid-single-digit annual growth rates.

“This indicates broad underlying demand for coffee liqueurs across various applications and regions. The Espresso Martini is still strong – this is why we just launched a decaffeinated version of our Espresso Liqueur in the US,” adds Luxardo.

Not just driven by the Espresso Martini, brands are also noticing other consumer trends pushing growth in coffee liqueur sales.

“There is a rise in RTDs with coffee liqueurs and the usage of espresso in culinary applications, sauces, desserts, ice cream, etc. These trends help the category expand into new occasions, audiences, and product formats,” says Luxardo.

Della Corte has also noticed the trend, adding: “There is a big trend around Baby Guinness shots, which is driven mainly by Gen Z consumers in both the UK and the US, and we’ve developed our own version of this – what we call the Baby Stout (Tia Maria with Disaronno Velvet on top).

“On the other hand, we’re seeing that bartenders are exploring coffee liqueur’s versatility, experimenting with new flavours and combinations. Signature coffee cocktails such as Coffee Negronis, Irish Coffee variations, and Coffee Old Fashioneds, which are becoming staples in trendy bars, driving demand for high-quality coffee liqueurs.”

Coffee experimentation

Over in Amsterdam, Ivar de Lange, master bartender at Lucas Bols, agrees that more can be done to show off the versatility of coffee liqueur while stepping away from a reliance on the Espresso Martini.

“Coffee, of course, is not a flavour, I try to educate that in the academy. It’s a combination of different flavours – sweet, bitter, acidity, and the robusta in our Galliano adds a bit of that bitter, citrus note to your Espresso Martini. There’s no good or bad coffee liqueur, there are different flavours they add to your cocktail.

“I used to own high-end cocktail bars and back then the Espresso Martini was known, so it was mostly used in that, but a bottle of Galliano or Bols Coffee would sit on the back bar for a while because it just wasn’t used that often, but now bartenders start to reach out for the bottle in their back bar and start using it in other cocktails as a potential twist. You can really see that the understanding of what a coffee liqueur is and the use of it has really benefited from the rise in popularity of the Espresso Martinis,” adds De Lange.

However, despite more bars at the top end experimenting with coffee in other types of serves, De Lange notes that the problem with coffee as a flavour is that it doesn’t mix well with acids and citrus. “The Negroni is an interesting crossover that you see with coffee, that can also go into an Old Fashioned style. I do hope that coffee liqueurs can manage to diversify. Galliano does it in a hot shot, which is warm coffee, Galliano Vanilla and cream. The Irish Coffee can be interesting as a jump to a coffee liqueur, and I hope that bartenders are willing to expand into more citruses. A Coffee Margarita can be a really nice drink if it’s balanced correctly. So I really hope that, after the peak of the popularity of the Espresso Martini, bartenders keep on experimenting with coffee so it gets its place behind the bar like an orange liqueur or blue Curaçao.

“I am afraid that in the mainstream, it will mainly be used in Espresso Martinis. I think the interesting thing about coffee is that there are so many variables you can play with, and there are so many flavours in coffee as it is that give a bartender many possibilities. These coffee liqueurs profit from the Espresso Martini, but what’s the next step? Are they here to stay? And this is up to the brand owners to ultimately see what you can do with the coffee liqueur. In my opinion, it has so many more possibilities than just the Espresso Martini,” adds De Lange.

One bar that’s known for this experimentation when it comes to a take on the Espresso Martini is Sips in Barcelona. The bar is currently ranked in third place on the World’s 50 Best Bars List 2025, with its take on the cocktail being a Cubanito or Tiny Cuban. “It’s completely far away from the DNA of the Espresso Martini, although people see and recognise it as this,” says co-owner Simone Caporale. “The main ingredients are cold brew, rum, sherry, crème de cassis and then the froth on top – in this case, we have an air made of pineapple.

“I look for an Espresso Martini to be delicious, for the identity, how the coffee is working and the flavours overall. People swapped vodka for rum 20 years ago, and that was the first step in saying there’s more to the Espresso Martini. The cocktail is well known among the mainstream now, which is great because that’s the bigger side of the market. They trust the name, and they already know what to expect.

“I see the Espresso Martini category growing in the next few years. Nowadays, you find RTD and pre-blended cocktails such as the Espresso Martini in tap systems, which shows there’s huge space for it in the mainstream. It’s also an easy cocktail to handle. For example, with a Daiquiri, you need fresh lime, and it won’t be the next day. If you preserve it and store it well, even a pre-blended Espresso Martini will still be fresh after a few days. It’s a reliable drink for this, and I believe soon you’ll find it more available in places, and it’s a cocktail to invest in,” adds Caporale.