The Chocolate Martini

The Chocolate Martini , with vodka, chocolate liqueur, or syrup, and sometimes another liqueur, was created by Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor in Texas in 1955 on the set of the film Giant. That at least is the claim Taylor advanced in her 1987 diet book Elizabeth Takes Off, although there is no known corroborating document published during the three decades between. Taylor described their original combination of vodka, Kahlúa, and Hershey’s chocolate syrup as “the best drink I ever tasted.” See Kahlua. Hudson later explained, “We were really just kids, we could eat and drink anything and we never needed sleep.”

In the 1960s, some San Franciscans took to jocularly applying the name to the Black Russian, but the term never reached the wider culture. Nonetheless, this usage might have got the name around. It is difficult to otherwise explain the 1972 Eek & Meek comic strip in which a bar patron’s order of a Chocolate Martini gets him booted out the door. (This does accurately reflect the general disdain for this drink held by cocktail traditionalists.)

The drink did not gain momentum until around 1995, at the height of the sweet Martini craze of the 1980s and 1990s. While some of these later Chocolate Martinis strove for a clear or at least translucent form, combining vodka with chocolate liqueur and/or crème de cacao, others included dairy or cream liqueurs such as Bailey’s in the mix, approaching the concept behind the Alexander of the 1910s. See Alexander. The presentation was often gussied up with a cocoa or chocolate-syrup rim, chocolate-syrup-drizzled interior, and/or a solid, grated, or powdered chocolate garnish. Moreover, Taylor’s coffee liqueur element was seldom utilized. Gary Regan offered up his adaptation of a 1993 recipe from Max’s South Beach, Miami, as follows (although many recipes drop the liqueur amount down to as low as a half ounce or split it with a chocolate cream liqueur such as Godiva). See Regan, Gary.

Recipe: Stir 60 ml vodka and 45 ml white crème de cacao with ice, strain into a cocoa-rimmed cocktail glass, and garnish with a Hershey’s Hug candy.

Caen, Herb. “These Things I Like.” San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 1966, sec. 2, 25.

Regan, Gary. The Joy of Mixology. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2003.

Ross, Fiona. Dining with the Famous and Infamous. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

Schneider, Howie. Eek & Meek, April 29, 1972.

Taylor, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Takes Off. New York: Putnam, 1987.

By: Frederic Yarm