How coffee liqueur Mr. Black rode the espresso martini wave

According to NIQ CGA’s cocktail tracker, in 2023, orders for espresso martinis doubled in velocity and dethroned the Long Island Iced Tea as the sixth most popular cocktail. Riding this wave is the coffee liqueur Mr. Black, which, since its U.S. launch in 2017, has driven one-third of the total retail sales growth in the coffee liqueur category.

Mr. Black launched in Australia but has become an international phenomenon; it was acquired by Diageo in 2022. According to the brand’s co-founder and now-creative director, Tom Baker, though the espresso martini wasn’t popular when it launched, he had a feeling a well-crafted coffee-based liqueur would be a global hit.

“I just had this sense that every bar in the world would one day want to buy this product from us,” he said on the Modern Retail Podcast. “And that was all the strategy that went into it.”

There were a few elements that led to Mr. Black’s growth. For one, it became a key ingredient in a popular cocktail. Additionally, Baker knew that the brand’s success was predicated on key placements in New York City.

“It was sort of the hub of cocktail culture,” he said. “All roads kind of lead there, especially in liquor.” So, Baker and a friend went door to door to get some of the best bars and liquor stores to sell the product. From there, the company made sure to keep the right celebrities and influencers abreast with its growth.

One thing led to another, and Mr. Black was able to reach the big time.

“All of a sudden, without you knowing, it’s [Stephen] Colbert and [Hugh] Jackman drinking a Mr. Black Espresso Martini,” he said. “So it definitely is equal parts an extraordinary amount of hard work and an extraordinary amount of luck.”

Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity.

Getting traction in NYC
“We made a lot of mistakes and still do to this day. But one of the things that we did right was we gave ourselves a year in the U.S. with effectively no sales pressure. So it was just me flying in, flying out, staying in some grotty Airbnbs in Bushwick, [alongside] one of my friends on the ground who actually lived in Philly and used to catch the Megabus down. And we just walked Mr. Black into hundreds of bars and liquor stores in New York. And we chose New York, I don’t know, for convenience. It was sort of the hub of cocktail culture. All roads kind of lead there, especially in liquor. It’s an expensive market to do business in, and we literally did a year of just walking around, pitching the brand and then shutting our mouth and seeing what people were saying back to us.”

Cocktails become the new light beer
“I’d say the broad trend we’re on is the rise of the cocktail. Remember when you were at college, right? You weren’t ordering cocktails. But, you go to watch these NYU guys and girls ordering espresso martinis. It’s like their Bud Light, like I used to drink. There’s been a cultural trend in drinking: less but better. People going out having a couple of cocktails instead of just chugging light beer all night. So that’s sort of the broader drinks trend: less but better, and this move to cocktails over the last 10, 20, years.”

Mr. Black’s influencer strategy
“[It started] really grassroots, working with award-winning bartenders in award-winning bars — taking that to drinks journalists like Robert Simonson from the New York Times. Saying, ‘Hey, Robert, this is happening. This is bubbling — keep an eye on it.’ And then doing that for a couple of years… We do hard work. We keep the right influencers, the right thought leaders, the right gatekeepers. We keep them in touch with the progress of our company, of our brand, showing genuine consumer traction and bartender traction and market… You then parlay that into success with influencers, with celebrity talent. People want to back a winning horse… Eventually, you start to build up this sort of tidal wave — this sort of like groundswell — this sort of bow wave of momentum and success, which, over time, kind of gets ahead of you. And then, all of a sudden, without you knowing, it’s [Stephen] Colbert and [Hugh] Jackman drinking a Mr. Black Espresso Martini… So it definitely is equal parts an extraordinary amount of hard work and an extraordinary amount of luck.”