Spanish Coffee , a snifter of flaming brandy, Kahlua, and 151-proof rum that is extinguished with hot coffee, is an elaboration of Pedro Chicote’s 1928 flaming Coffee Grog. It was brought to America by Juan Abella (1930–), a Catalan, in 1965 and introduced to instant acclaim at the Five Chateaux restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1968 Abella moved to Miami, Florida, bringing the drink with him. It enjoyed a certain fleeting regional popularity as an after dinner drink in the 1970s but found its true home at the venerable Huber’s Café, in Portland, Oregon. Forty years later, Huber’s still serves five thousand of its elaborated, perfected Spanish Coffees a week.
Recipe: Rim an Irish Coffee glass with sugar. Add 22 ml Spanish brandy and 22 ml overproof rum. Set liquor on fire and swirl glass to brown the sugar. Add 22 ml Kahlua and 90 ml coffee. Top with unsweetened whipped cream and grate nutmeg on top. Note: Huber’s replaces the brandy with triple sec and uses 60 ml Kahlua.
See also Chicote, Pedro “Perico” and Kahlúa.
“Flaming Spanish Coffee Ole!” (advertisement). Boston Herald, November 12, 1965.
Chicote, Pedro. Cocktails. Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra: 1928.
By: David Wondrich