Breakfast Martinis Were Inspired By (What Else) The Most Important Meal Of The Day

Does the phrase "breakfast martini" make you think of gin or vodka flavored with bacon and eggs? Well, no, that's not what's in this drink, nor is it made with maple syrup, glazed donut, or cinnamon roll-flavored vodka, although all of these products exist. Instead, the recipe for this cocktail calls for an ingredient perhaps better known on British breakfast tables: orange marmalade. While marmalade sales in the U.K. were lagging by the 20-teens, it experienced an upsurge in popularity upon the death of Queen Elizabeth since it was one of her favorite condiments.

As far as the breakfast martini itself goes, no, it wasn't created by Paddington Bear when he turned to drink upon having his latest movie panned by a film critic. Instead, the man credited with the concoction, an Italian-British bartender named Salvatore Cabrese, got the idea when he snagged a jar of marmalade off of his breakfast table and started playing around with the idea of using it in a cocktail.

Cabrese liked the fact that this orange-flavored jam combines sweet, sour, and bitter flavors, so he stirred it into some gin (another quintessentially British ingredient) then added lemon juice and Cointreau to finish things off. The name, he says, was an homage to the meal that he may have ruined for his wife unless he replaced the missing spread in time for her next piece of toast.

The breakfast martini wasn't the first drink of its kind, given that "The Savoy Cocktail Book," published in 1930, includes a recipe for a libation simply called the marmalade cocktail. This very similar drink calls for marmalade, gin, and lemon juice, lacking only the orange liqueur. Still, it seems to have fallen out of fashion by the '90s, because when the breakfast martini made its debut in 1996, it was seen as something new and clever. Perhaps due to the name, it quickly caught on as a brunch drink, and some bars even garnished it with a bit of toast.

By the late '00s, jam cocktails in general had become rather fashionable, and even now you can still find drink recipes adding preserves to vodka, whiskey, and sparkling wine, as well as gin. By the 2020s, the trend had, of course, migrated to TikTok, but with a twist: As of 2023, mocktails made with jam and sparkling water were having a viral moment.

Whether you mix your drinks with or without booze, marmalade may just be the ingredient your bar cart needs to add sweetness and tang. If you're going the nonalcoholic route, you could even make a fizzy virgin breakfast martini with marmalade, lemon juice, and tonic water. This last-named soda has bitterness as well as bubbles and, in combination with the sweet and sour elements, would make for a standout mocktail.