The Coffee Cocktail, an old, old cocktail that we’re just going to see again.
Welcome to the Cocktail Spirit in Small Screen network. I’m your host Robert Hess.
Now the coffee cocktail, the first time we actually see that in print is in Jerry Thomas’ updated edition of his Bartender’s Guide. You’ve probably seen his very first edition from 1862 which included both cocktail and mixed drink recipes which includes some cocktail recipes and the second half of the book was actually written by someone else which included other stuff.
This is the edition that just has his cocktail recipes. A matter of fact the cocktails are all pulled to the front of this book rather than being buried somewhere inside. And that just shows you by 1887 how popular cocktails were getting.
And the coffee cocktail, one thing he says here is the name of this drink is a misnomer as coffee and bitters are not to be found among the ingredients but it looks like coffee when it has been properly concocted and hence probably its name. And interesting there is that’s why it’s called the coffee cocktail and it mentions that either coffee or bitters are included. And this just further exemplifies the fact that bitters at this point in time was still considered to be a constitute ingredient of anything called a cocktail.
So now what we’re going to do is just add some Port one and a half ounces of Port. And the old port in a storm, I’m sure would work here. You want something not instead of a fine Port, a Ruby Port something that has a nice good color to it as long as it doesn’t break flavor to it. I wouldn’t do anything too expensive.
And then one and a half ounces of brandy or cognac, then we have about a teaspoon of simple syrup, and then we add a couple dashes of bitters. These are Angostura bitters of course aromatic style and then one whole egg.
You know for shaking, I’m using two metal shakers. Metal tins rather than the standard Boston shaker of a metal tin and a mixing glass. This is kind of honored Jerry Thomas. Where the Boston shaker started from, we’re not quite sure exactly but chances are referring from two metal tins they had that they were originally pouring back and forth on and eventually they saw that they actually fit really well one inside the other and this is probably the original Boston shaker.
I’m going to shake it first all by itself, just to froth up the egg a little bit more since the egg froth is fairly important to this drink. And then I’m going to add the ice and shake again to chill. Another nice thing about using the two middle tins like this is if you haven’t had like a traveling kit. You don’t have a pint glass that might get broken.
So now, we’re going to strain this into a wine glass. So we end up with then as something that looks somewhat similar to a standard latte. We have the brownish colored ingredient at the bottom and a foamy head on the top and there we have the Coffee Cocktail.
Coffee Cocktail
1 ½ oz Port
1 ½ oz brandy or Cognac
1 tsp. simple syrup
2 dashed Angostura Aromatic Bitters
One whole egg
Dry shake, add ice, shake and strain into a wine glass.
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