Espresso tonic combines espresso, chilled tonic water and ice. Treat your first glass as a reference: measure the ingredients, follow an order and change proportions on a later attempt. This guide develops Crema’s free recipe without promising one perfect flavour.
Set up before brewing
Choose a clean glass of at least 350 ml, a spoon, a measure and a scale. Arrange them before preparing the coffee. Crema’s recipe starts with 120 g of ice, 150 ml of chilled tonic, 40 ml of espresso and one orange slice. These are starting quantities for this version, not a universal standard. Do not try to fit the whole drink into a small coffee cup.
Measure the coffee separately
Brew into a separate vessel and measure 40 ml for the drink. Do not treat millilitres as equivalent to the grams of espresso yield: the recipe specifies an ingredient volume, while weighing the brew is a different measurement. Keep your familiar brewing method for the first attempt. Let the espresso cool briefly as the recipe suggests, rather than changing every brewing variable at once.
Ice and tonic before espresso
Add the ice, then slowly pour chilled tonic into the slightly tilted glass. Leave at least 3 cm of space at the top. Now pour the espresso slowly over the back of a spoon. This order makes the pouring process easier to manage. If foam approaches the rim, pause instead of filling the glass to the top.
Layers are presentation, not a score
Dark coffee may form a layer above the lighter tonic, but appearance depends on ingredients and pouring. Crema’s photographs are serving illustrations, not a result you must reproduce. Follow the recipe’s gentle stir before drinking, add the orange slice and serve promptly. An indistinct boundary between layers does not automatically mean something went wrong.
Change one thing at a time
Taste the finished drink before adding extra sweetness. Note the tonic brand and quantities. For the next glass, change one element, such as the tonic quantity, while keeping the rest the same. This makes your personal comparison more useful. There is no need to make your preferences match a photograph or somebody else’s rating.
What the free recipe includes
Espresso tonic is one of Crema’s 12 free recipes. The full ingredient list and steps are linked below. Crema Club contains another 68 recipes and requires paid access; this guide does not reproduce their instructions. Use the recipe as a starting point for your equipment and ingredients.