coffee drinks have played a role in bars since the earliest years of mixology. Christian Schultz’s Manual for the Manufacture of Cordials, appended to the early editions of Jerry Thomas’s 1862 How to Mix Drinks, includes recipes for coffee creams, syrups, and spirits, though evidence is lacking that these things—well known in Europe—were actually used in American bars. See Thomas, Jerry. Harry Johnson’s 1882 Bartender’s Manual has a recipe for a “Soldier’s Camping Punch,” with coffee, brandy, and rum, and he adds a Coffee Cobbler in the 1900 edition of the book. See Johnson, Harry. The Coffee Cocktail, a late nineteenth-century American bar staple, contained no coffee, it must be noted, but merely looked like it did. See Coffee Cocktail.
There is, however, a long tradition of mixing coffee and spirits in Europe. A Coffee Punch (with brandy) was among the handful of drinks the London bartender Leo Engel added to the many he plagiarized from Jerry Thomas in his 1878 American and Other Drinks, while in France it was common to add brandy, calvados, or eau-de-vie to hot coffee (as a café arrosé, or “irrigated coffee”) or to a Mazagran (coffee in a tall glass with cold water). The most prominent European coffee drink, however, is undoubtedly the Irish Coffee, which was introduced to the United States in the 1950s and remains the signature drink at the Buena Vista in San Francisco. Relatives of the Irish Coffee include the flaming Spanish Coffee, now a specialty of Huber’s in Portland, Oregon, and New Orleans’s much older Café Brulot, a brandy, coffee, and spice mix that is also set alight in a highly ornate ritual. See Café Brulot; Irish Coffee; and Spanish Coffee.
In the mid-1980s, London barman Dick Bradsell pioneered the modern coffee cocktail when he created the Vodka Espresso (commonly known as an Espresso Martini), which calls for vodka, Kahlua, and a fresh shot of espresso; this drink is particularly widespread in Australia. See Bradsell, Dick. As mixologists of the early twenty-first century became more experimental, coffee showed up more commonly as a cocktail ingredient.
See also Espresso Martini.
Johnson, Harry. Bartender’s Manual. New York: 1882.
Nourraison, Didier. Le buveur du XIXe siècle. Paris: Albin Michel, 1990.
By: Robert Simonson and David Wondrich