Espresso Martini Festival, the morning-after edition

The Espresso Martini Festival in Bowen Hills has the unusual distinction of being a festival about exactly one drink. Twelve participating bars, one cocktail, one weekend, and an unofficial leaderboard kept by a woman called Maeve who has been running point on it for three years and refuses to be photographed.

The format is simple. You buy a passport at any of the participating venues. The passport gets you a tasting-size espresso martini at each of the twelve bars. You vote on the best one as you go. The leaderboard updates in real time at the host venue. The winner gets a small wooden trophy and bragging rights for twelve months.

Last year's leaderboard

1. Tropic Lab. The defending champion, second year running. Their version uses cold-drip coffee instead of fresh espresso, which is a fairly polarising choice but clearly the voting public has made up their mind. Smooth and cold, less bite, less bitter.

2. Garage Bar. Traditional build with three beans of espresso pulled at thirty seconds. Solid, no surprises. The cocktail is what you order if you are not in the mood to think.

3. Otto's. The most divisive entry. Adds a tiny amount of cardamom syrup and serves it with a single coffee bean balanced on top, which is twee but works.

4. Side Chick. The dark horse. They use a single-origin Ethiopian espresso that produces a much fruitier martini than you might expect. Good for the second drink of the night, less good for the fifth.

5. The Greenhouse. Their version uses a vegan cream foam instead of egg white. Strong, but the ratio runs slightly sweet.

Pacing yourself

It is twelve drinks. They are tasting-size, but each one has roughly half a shot of espresso plus the booze. By drink seven you will be wired and slightly unwell unless you eat properly between venues. Walk between bars, do not catch ubers, the venues are all within fifteen minutes on foot.

Most people split the festival across two evenings. Six on the Friday night, six on the Saturday. We strongly recommend this. Drinking twelve espresso martinis in a single evening is technically possible but not advisable.

Tickets

The passport is sixty dollars and you can buy it at any participating venue from 5pm Friday onwards. There is no online sales channel. Once the passport runs out at a venue, that venue is out, you have to go to the next one.

The festival runs from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Sunday is the calmest day, and possibly the best day to do it if you actually want to chat to the bartenders about what they have brewed.

Read next

If long-weekend drinking is your weakness, see also the Brisbane Gin Festival and the Rosé and Cheese party. The morning-after eating recommendations live on Eat with us. For the small businesses we use ourselves around the precinct, The Local List is the page.