Three Coffee Beans on an Espresso Martini Makes Sense — but Why on Sambuca?

Almost every aspect of Italian food and beverage culture revolves around digestion. There’s “aperitivo hour,” designed to stimulate the appetite before dinner. Italians often serve salad after a main course as a palate cleanser and digestive aid. And in Italian restaurants, it’s relatively common to cap off a meal with a shot of some form of digestivo, whether it’s an amaro, limoncello, grappa, or sambuca — the last of which is a neutral spirit flavored with aniseed, star anise, fennel seed, elderflower, and other herbs and spices. Some sambucas are dark blue, dyed with added coloring agents, and flavored with elderberries. Others are bright red and include red berry infusions. But the most common form is crystal clear, tasting of licorice and its core ingredient, anise.

When serving sambuca, tradition dictates that it should be topped with coffee beans left to float around on top of the liquid. They don’t make for the prettiest garnish in the world, and in Italy they call sambuca with one coffee bean “sambuca con la mosca,” which translates to “sambuca with the fly.” The origins of this term remain disputed, but some sources point to an event that occurred during the filming of Federico Fellini’s 1960 film “La Dolce Vita.” Allegedly, a few of the actors were enjoying a break from filming at Rome’s Via Veneto cafe when one of them dropped a coffee bean into their glass of sambuca and shouted, “There’s a fly!”

Regardless of origin, the practice has become tradition, but the magic number of beans has since evolved to three. Is this all just rooted in superstition, like the odd number rule associated with Martini olives, or is there something more significant behind it?

According to food industry news outlet Food Republic, the three beans symbolize health, happiness, and prosperity. Other sources say health, wealth, and happiness. Sometimes, sambuca is served with as many as seven coffee beans to give a nod to the Seven Hills of Rome. It’s really all that simple.

But that leads us to another question: Why have coffee beans become the garnish of choice for sambuca? We’re not talking about an Espresso Martini here. It’s a sweet, anise-flavored spirit.

Even though the tradition may have been born from an off-set joke while filming a movie in Rome, the coffee bean garnish has persisted, as many cite the beans as providing a complementary flavor to sambuca. According to popular brand Molinari, “[combining] the sweet and soft aroma of the liqueur with the bitter and dry aroma of the roasted coffee bean, is an attempt to reconcile two apparently opposing worlds that were actually made for each other.” Occasionally, bartenders will light the combination on fire to briefly toast the beans and enhance the olfactory experience.

As far as what to do with the beans, it’s a “choose-your-own-adventure” situation. Some people will chew on them in between sips to temper the liqueur’s sweetness with the beans’ bitterness. Others will wait until the sambuca is finished before munching on them, but there’s no real pressure to eat the beans at all.

Another popular way to enjoy Sambuca doesn’t involve coffee beans on top, but rather in the drink itself. According to “The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails,” “In Rome it’s still typical to eschew sugar in one’s espresso in favor of a splash of the anise-flavored liqueur.” This drink is known as “caffè corretto,” or “corrected coffee,” and can include sambuca, grappa, amaro, or brandy — hold the beans of three.

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