Café Brûlot , sometimes also known as Café Brûlot Diabolique or Café Brulé, is a spectacular coffee service presented tableside that involves warming brandy-laced coffee in a special pan over an alcohol fire, setting it alight, and ladling the flaming liquid down a spiral-cut lemon peel held over the pan. Its invention has been ascribed to Jules Alciatore, the son of the founder of Antoine’s Restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana, opened in 1840 and fortunately still thriving on St Louis Street in the heart of the city’s famed French Quarter. Its roots lie in the nineteenth-century French café drink, brûlot de café, a simple mix of coffee and eau-de-vie that was served flaming, but with influence from the elaborate flaming Punches popular in mid-century France.
There are a number of other classic New Orleans restaurants, such as Galatoire’s and Commander’s Palace, that also prepare this classic recipe. To many, a Café Brûlot is an essential part of experiencing New Orleans’s unique culinary culture.
The drink is not easy to reproduce because of the special apparatus the “show” requires, a copper bowl with a Sheffield silver lining and a special decorative cradle supported by brass figures. The drink is quite labor-intensive to fix, since it requires most the ingredients to marinate for several hours beforehand and has several intricate steps, but it is worth all the work and preparation.
Recipe: Marinate 3 cinnamon sticks (broken into pieces), 1 whole lemon peel and 1 whole orange peel for several hours in 240 ml VS-grade cognac and 120 ml kirschwasser. Prepare a second orange peel, cut in a spiral, by studding it with 12 cloves and threading one end of it on the tines of a serving fork. Have 1.5 liters of French roast coffee flavored with chicory hot and ready in warmers. Place the brandy, kirsch, lemon peel, and un-studded orange peel in the upper bowl of a Brûlot set and heat it by pouring 60 ml 151-proof rum in the lower bowl and igniting it. When the brandy is warmed enough it will ignite. Hold the studded orange peel over the bowl and using the ladle pour the flaming brandy mixture over it. Repeat this several times. The bursting oil cells on the skin of the orange will sparkle, and the cloves will begin to glow, providing a wonderful light show for your guests. Pour the coffee into the bowl to put the flame out, sweeten to taste with demerara-sugar syrup, and serve in demitasse cups.
“Plusiers limonadiers du quartier,” Le droit (Paris), December 30, 1840, p. 3.
“Light My Fire: The Spectacle and Tradition of Café Brûlot.” French Quarter.com. http://www.frenchquarter.com/tradition-cafe-brulot/ (accessed February 22, 2021).
By: Dale DeGroff