The Coffee Cocktail , a late nineteenth-century favorite, has—as newspapers at the time seemed to never tire of pointing out—not a drop of coffee in it, but is rather composed of brandy, port, sugar, and an egg (and sometimes crème de cacao, a later addition), which when shaken together and strained into a glass bears a strong resemblance to café au lait. It is first mentioned in print in a Boston newspaper in 1885, but its invention was also attributed to New Yorker “Major” Flynn, bartender at the sporty Shakespeare Inn, at Broadway and Twelfth Street. The Coffee Cocktail was the first popular drink identified as a cocktail to omit bitters. Its popularity, which rested largely on its novelty, was erased by Prohibition. See Prohibition and Temperance in America.
Recipe: Shake 1 raw egg, 60 ml ruby port, 30 ml brandy, and 15 ml simple syrup with ice. Strain into large cocktail glass and grate nutmeg on top.
“Finest in the City.” Denver Daily News, August 21, 1901 [attribution to Flynn].
Thomas, Jerry. The Bar-Tender’s Guide. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1887.
By: David Wondrich