• Smirnoff has secured exclusive vodka sponsorship with The Allegra Group across their global coffee festival portfolio for 2023
• Festivals taking place in Amsterdam, London, Paris, São Paolo, New York and Milan
• Smirnoff will hero the iconic Espresso Martini serve
• Each festival to feature a sponsored Smirnoff cocktail bar
• Four festivals to offer Smirnoff cocktail masterclass sessions
In celebration of Espresso Martini Day (Wednesday 15th March 2023), Smirnoff – the world’s number one vodka[1] – is pleased to announce a global partnership with The Allegra Group, purveyors of the world’s largest and most celebrated coffee festivals.
The partnership includes exclusive category sponsorship across the 2023 Coffee Festival portfolio to bring the perfect Espresso Martini to life for an estimated audience of 120,000 visitors across Amsterdam, London, Paris, São Paolo, New York and Milan.
Smirnoff will bring its vibrant energy to the fore through festival-wide Espresso Martini sampling and headline sponsorship of the cocktail bars at each festival to serve up perfectly shaken Smirnoff Espresso Martinis. A bespoke ‘City Serve’, created in collaboration with a local coffee roaster and in celebration of the unique spark each city’s culture has to offer, will also be available.
Four of this year’s largest festivals will also play home to Smirnoff Cocktail Masterclasses – sessions designed to bring guests together over a premium-quality cocktail-making experience. Each 45-minute session will be hosted by a local leading bartender and local coffee roaster, offering guests the opportunity to get hands-on with Smirnoff and empowering them with the skillset to create the perfect Espresso Martini and their local ‘City Serve’ at home. Masterclass tickets will be available to purchase from the ‘Tickets’ section of each festival’s website.
Stephanie Jacoby, Global Brand Director at Smirnoff, commented:
“Our partnership with The Allegra Group has been fuelled by two key cultural trends that have emerged over recent years. The first is the rising number of people making cocktails at home[2] and the second is increasing popularity of the Espresso Martini and its resurgence as one of the top ten cocktails of choice at the bar[3].
We know the exceptional smoothness of Smirnoff No.21 serves as the perfect foundation for vodka-based cocktails, so we wanted to challenge leading local bartenders and coffee roasters to experiment with this to create each City Serve. As a global brand, we are excited that the scale of this partnership will take us across three continents, showcasing Smirnoff’s aptitude as the vodka of choice for Espresso Martinis and beyond.”
Ludovic Rossignol, Co-Founder of The Coffee Festivals, commented:
“We feel an authentic connection with Smirnoff through our joint passions for culture, flavour and craft. We’re very pleased to have them as a partner across our 2023 coffee festivals and look forward to the brand bringing its vibrant energy to our existing event formats. We’ve seen increased interest from the coffee trade in exploring coffee cocktails and we look forward to working with Smirnoff on educating and entertaining through the art of mixology at each of our worldwide events”.
[1] Spirits Business, Brand Champions Report 2022
[2] Bacardi Cocktail Trends Report 2022
[3] CGA’s Cocktail Sales Tracker 2022