After-Dinner Cocktails

After-dinner drinks divide into two camps that barely resemble each other. The dessert side is creamy and sweet: Brandy Alexanders, Grasshoppers, White Russians. The digestif side is bitter and dry and meant to settle a meal rather than extend it.

The bitter camp is the more interesting one and the more neglected. Amaro on its own over ice, a Black Manhattan, or a straight measure of Fernet are all after-dinner drinks and none of them is sweet.

Coffee bridges the two. An Espresso Martini is sweet enough to be dessert and bitter enough to be a digestif, which is most of why it took over.