Discovery can feel like invention. When you encounter a combination of flavours so prepossessingly ravishing yet so utterly unknown to you that surely — with all your life experience and accumulated years — this must be the first of its existence? I’m not referring here to culinary colonisation and staking a flag in someone else’s heritage, I’m talking about tasting a peppermint espresso martini for the first time. What do you mean it’s extremely, publicly common? Entirely un-gatekept? There’s only so many hours in the day, but I’ve had plenty enough of them to hear about this!

I’ve quoted him before, but Pete Campbell of Mad Men really has earned his place as a patron saint of food writers when he said “turned out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently”. In the fullness of time — the week out of 38 years in which I’ve known of this flavour combination — the important thing is that I arrived at all.

As per usual, the path was indirect and anfractuous. I began, hellbent upon creating a pistachio espresso martini — and I’m still not entirely talked out of this notion — but could not find the landing strip between a soupy consistency and legible flavours, despite the individual parts all tasting promising. I hate striking out entirely on a recipe but am willing to admit defeat after diligent effort; at the eleventh hour my girlfriend casually suggested adding peppermint to the espresso martini and THERE was the drink at last, exhilarating, begotten not created, utterly obliterating all the unexceptional-to-lacklustre iterations before it.

For all that I briefly assumed the coffee’s earthy warmth and lip-chapping cold of peppermint could never be comfortable bedfellows — that their incongruities would magnify each other like dirt mixed with toothpaste — well, of course they not only work, they’re celestial together for those very reasons. Perhaps it’s the invigorating dovetailing of minty-freshness with caffeine, perhaps it’s the 5D chess your brain has to play to process its opposing forces, but logic — and I do still possess some, despite all demonstrations to the contrary — would suggest that because peppermint and chocolate go so well together, and because coffee’s bitter, smoky, bean-provenanced qualities are not so far removed from chocolate, that the pairing is in fact quite obvious.

It certainly tastes pretty obvious.

And happily, given that Christmas is a time of undue external stress, this cocktail doesn’t ask too much of you, top shelf-wise — just vodka, as I’m a firm believer that once you add booze and coffee to a cocktail you don’t need an additional coffee-flavoured booze on top of it. That being said, if you wish to add a splash of Kahlua or indeed, if you have some vulgar creme de menthe in the cupboard above your fridge, feel free to add a respective splash of that. I only ask that you include a droplet of almond essence and a pinch of salt when making your sugar syrup — itself the work of moments — in honour of the catalytic pistachio cocktail; when I tried this with plain sugar syrup it was good but lacked cohesion. The almond doesn’t overpower — how could it, with the pugilistic peppermint breathing coolly down its neck — but it lends a necessary, softly sweet richness.

For further adventures in cocktail-making I also recommend my Gingerbread Espresso Martini and this adaptable Tamarillo Sidecar. And as this will be my final blog post before Christmas, I would also like to give one final nudge towards my immense 14th Annual HungryandFrozen Edible Gift Guide, with 87 recipes compiled for you, ready to put a bow on and give away or pass on back to yourself. And of course, I once again (as in, it feels like I only just did it last year) wish you a merry Christmas, if that’s what you’re doing, and whatever you’re doing I hope it’s relaxing, relatively tension-free (or free of tense relatives) and replete with excellent food. Given the hit rate of atrocities this year my hopes aren’t entirely high for peace on earth in 2025 but that’s no reason why we can’t try.

Peppermint espresso martini

An exhilarating cocktail ideal for putting pep(permint) in your step this Christmas. Recipe by myself, though it’s not the first of its kind.

For measuring purposes, 1 shot = 30ml = 1oz = 2 tablespoons.

• 45ml vodka
• 30ml espresso or cold brew
• 25ml 2:1 sugar syrup
• A couple drops peppermint essence (from the baking aisle)
• Optional, mini candy canes for decoration

2:1 sugar syrup

• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• A scant 1/4 teaspoon almond essence
• A scant pinch of salt

1: Start with the sugar syrup. Stir the cup of caster sugar and half cup of water in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer, letting it bubble gently, and once the sugar has dissolved into the water, remove it from the heat and allow to cool. Stir in the dash of almond essence and the small pinch of salt, and don’t skip either of these ingredients! They are necessary for the rounded flavour of the cocktail. Store any leftover syrup in a sealed container in the fridge.

2: With that out of the way, you’re just a hop, skip, and a jump from the cocktail being ready. Place all ingredients — 45ml vodka, 30ml espresso, 25ml syrup, and a little peppermint essence — into one half of a set of cocktail shaker tins. Fill with plenty of fresh ice cubes, firmly seal the second tin onto the first and shake vigorously. If you don’t have cocktail shakers, use a good, clean jam jar and screw on the lid before shaking.

3: Smack open the tins and strain the drink through a mini sieve into a martini glass. Garnish with a mini candy cane hooked on the rim if you like.

Makes one cocktail.

Note: It’s easy enough to double this in most standard cocktail tins, any more than that and you’ll need to do a few rounds. Replace 15ml of the vodka with coffee liqueur if you wish, and replace the peppermint essence with 5ml creme de menthe if you have it (or to taste.)

music lately:

Denial is a River/Boiled Peanuts by Doechii, her performance combining these two songs on Stephen Colbert’s show recently; the artistry, the presence, the lyrics, the choreography — also hers! — she is a star.

This Christmas I Spend With You by Robert Goulet. It’s his season! When he says “marrrk this holiday, mmmark it well” in that voice as rich and savoury as slow-cooked brisket, who are we to disagree?

Go Man Go by the Breeders, I don’t know why this sweetly, fuzzily hypnotic wall of sound wasn’t included on The Last Splash album first time round but better late than never.

PS: Again I’m bringing your attention to ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal, and if you’re one of the rare few who have more money than you know what to do with this Christmas, why not share it around? Their latest message on 10 December paints an alarming yet unsurprising image of “indescribable pain”, but still they continue supplying families with water. Further afield, if you have paypal you could also consider donating to Gaza Soup Kitchen — in their words, “in a world abundant in resources, no child should ever go to bed hungry. Right now in Gaza, every bite is a story of resilience and hope…your donation is their tomorrow.”

Finally, here in Aotearoa you can find out more about the powerful and momentous Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti and contribute to the kaupapa. Now is the time to write your submission against the bill, which closes rudely soon on 7 January. Crack out the thesaurus and find all the synonyms you can for abhorrent, gormless, loathsome, ignominious, and so on.