Coffee and whiskey are a beloved combination—just ask anyone who’s fortified themself with a stiff Irish coffee at brunch. But for a nighttime pick-me-up with a caffeinated punch, consider the classic Revolver cocktail. This whiskey-based answer to the espresso martini is perfect for those who skip vodka. Delicious and easy to make, it’s served in bars from Sydney to Chicago. Best of all, those with well-stocked bars likely already have all the ingredients to make a stellar one.
What Is the Revolver Cocktail and Why Is It Popular?
Invented in 2003, the Revolver cocktail is a simple, chilled marriage of whiskey or bourbon, coffee liqueur and orange bitters. It is beloved by bartenders and homebodies alike because it’s simple enough to make at home, but fun enough to order out at a bar.
A 2007 Wall Street Journal article about speakeasies mentioned the Revolver cocktail as “a house special with the simplicity one finds in the best cocktails.” People loved it. Soon after, the drink started showing up on bar menus from Austria to New Zealand. “Around 2008, 2009, people started sending me pictures of menus from all over the world with the Revolver on there,” the cocktail's creator says. He thinks the Revolver’s popularity partially owes to the rise of rye, with its notes of spice, as well as its simplicity and rich flavor.
What’s the History of the Revolver Cocktail?
The origin story of the Revolver involves a perfect storm of historical events. A higher-rye bourbon had just debuted, and the creator's bar purchased an entire case of it. No one was ordering it by name, because no one had ever heard of it. Not knowing what else to do with it, he started experimenting. This label was one of the first high-rye bourbons we got, making it dryer and more modifiable, he says.
The 2000s didn’t offer much in the way of artisanal cocktails, nor was the decade friendly to drinkers with a drier palate. At the time,the bar was mostly selling whiskey Cokes, beer and sweet cocktails like mango mojitos and lychee and pineapple-infused martinis. The mixologist craved something different: a cocktail inspired by the classics, without the use of fussy bespoke syrups.
“I wanted to create a drink from readily available materials that anyone with a little bit of skill could make,” he says. “If a drink is going to catch hold worldwide, other people need to be able to make it with the stuff they probably have on hand.”
In a riff on a Manhattan, he swapped in coffee liqueur for sweet vermouth, inspired by a friend who added creme de cacao to his Manhattans. Instead of aromatic bitters, he used orange bitters, which he says were unusual enough at the time that they served as a “cocktail geek secret handshake.”
Those bitters made the cocktail special enough that the Revolver cocktail was worth ordering out, but replicable if any cocktail geek wanted to grab a bottle themself. Now, of course, a couple of clicks will send a bottle of orange bitters straight to your door—making it easier to recreate than ever.
The most complicated part of the cocktail is the flamed orange disc garnish; it layers the intensity of orange and completes the drink’s aromatic profile. “Orange flavors work best when they’re stacked on top of each other, like how tomato sauce and tomato paste work together, so I did orange bitters and orange garnish.” Because it’s flamed, the orange garnish gives off a smoky scent that partially lends the Revolver its name (think: gun smoke).
New Spirits, New Riffs
Though high-rye bourbon inspired the cocktail, this three-ingredient recipe is rife for experimentation. It's creator now makes the cocktail mostly with a strong rye whiskey that’s 100 proof or higher, rather than a high-rye bourbon. But he also recommends playing around with a 100-proof conventional whiskey or with other high-rye bourbons.
How to Make the Revolver Cocktail
Note: If you’d like to batch this recipe up for four drinks, batch only the whiskey and coffee liqueur. Add the bitters when you’re ready to stir. Bitters bloom in batches. The longer they sit, the more bitter they become. Eight dashes takes two seconds and is simple, so there’s no reason to do it ahead of time.
Ingredients
2 ounces whiskey (100-proof whiskey, high-rye bourbon, or rye)
1/2 ounce coffee liqueur
2 dashes orange bitters
Flamed orange disc to garnish
Instructions
Add at least 6 cubes of ice to a mixing glass and add the bourbon, coffee liqueur and orange bitters. Stir for at least 30 seconds, until chilled.
Strain into a chilled coupe or Nick and Nora glass.
For the garnish, you’ll need an orange and a wooden match. Cut a circular piece of peel off the side of an orange with a paring knife, about one inch around. (Valencia oranges usually have a good amount of oil in the peel.)
Light a wooden match. (Don’t use a cardboard match, a lighter or a torch. Santer says the wooden match provides a cleaner flavor to the orange flaming due to its natural material.) With the peel side toward the flame, squeeze the two opposite sides of the disk together so the disk becomes convex, peel side out (If the orange disk were a taco the peel side would be the outside, the white pith the inside). This is how you will express the orange oils from the disk, through the flame over the top of the cocktail. Drop the disc in the cocktail or discard.
