Coffee Cocktail (1925)
Strong brewed black coffee and rum, served cold without milk or cream. Leave it dry or add the optional sugar syrup.
- Original yieldYield
- 1 cocktail1 cocktail
- PrepPrep time
- TotalTotal time
Allow 5 minutes to brew and cool the coffee before shaking.
Published Updated
Original recipe: 1 cocktail
The story behind the recipe
This Coffee Cocktail actually contains coffee. That sounds like a modest promise until you encounter Jerry Thomas's older drink of the same name: port, brandy, sugar and egg, with the name explained by its appearance. Nina Toye and A. H. Adair's 1925 recipe takes the coffee pot quite literally.
Brewed coffee, rum and a cold glass
The recipe in Drinks: Long and Short begins with strong black Moka coffee and rum. The mixture starts hot, rests on ice and is shaken with shaved ice before serving. A morning ingredient becomes a small cold drink with no milk or cream.
Its proportions are generous to the coffee: three glasses of coffee to two and a half of rum. Those quantities made a batch for six people. The single glass below keeps that 6:5 relationship, with optional syrup for someone who prefers a little sweetness.
That makes it a useful choice when a guest asks for a coffee cocktail and you want something beyond coffee liqueur. The brewed ingredient has the roast aroma and bitterness of the beans you've chosen, with rum joining it directly.
Read more about this recipe
Choose the coffee before the rum
Use a strong brew you'd enjoy drinking. A thin breakfast cup will become milder still once rum and mixing dilution join it. Concentration matters more than whether the equipment on the counter is an espresso machine or a filter brewer.
Espresso and strong filter coffee won't look identical. Espresso may give a more obvious froth; filtered coffee can have a cleaner-looking surface. Both are options here; the book specifies Moka coffee. A particular foam height isn't what makes the drink successful.
The ingredient measure means finished coffee. Water poured onto grounds isn't all recovered in the cup, so measure what's brewed before mixing. That's especially helpful for several drinks, when a generous-looking pot may contain less liquid than the starting water suggests.
Sweetness is a choice
The printed 1925 recipe has no syrup. You can follow that dry starting point or use the small optional measure below. Honey or another flavored sweetener would make a further variation, not an unnoticed replacement for plain syrup.
Different beans and roasts bring different bitterness. Taste the coffee on its own when choosing it for the cocktail; a bitter brew doesn't stop being bitter because it's served in a stemmed glass. Rum also varies, so there's no one sweetness level that belongs to every bottle-and-bean pairing.
Toye and Adair suggested Santa Cruz or Bacardi rum. The ingredient list gives modern examples in that direction. Choose one that leaves room for the coffee; a costly bottle isn't necessary simply because the drink has few ingredients.
The cupboard beside the kettle
Tea, coffee and marmalade all appear in the authors' drinks book. That household range is explored in the feature on their 1925 recipes. Here the kettle and coffee brewer are as relevant to preparation as the spirit bottle.
The hot beginning needs a pause before the shake. Cooling reduces how quickly the mixing ice melts, keeping a measured small drink from becoming a much longer one. Have the chilled glass ready at that point.
Optional coffee beans give the surface a modest decoration. Leaving them out suits the plain, dry mixture too. If the occasion normally ends with coffee, this offers another way to use the pot, with the same attention to the brew you'd give a cup served hot.
Make it your wayOriginal: 1 serving · Makes 1 cocktail
Original recipe: 1 cocktail
Ingredients
For 1 cocktail. Quantities are shown as written.
Source measurement convention: US customary. Explicit unit definitions take precedence; unconfirmed measures must be checked before conversion.
Original quantities for 1 cocktail.
- Freshly brewed strong black coffee1 1/2 fl oz
- Rum (such as Cruzan Virgin Islands rum or Bacardi Carta Blanca / Carta Oro)1 1/4 fl oz
- Simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water by volume, optional)1/4 fl oz
- Coffee beans (optional, for garnish)3
Measurement notes
- freshly brewed strong black coffee, rum (such as Cruzan Virgin Islands rum or Bacardi Carta Blanca / Carta Oro), simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water by volume, optional): US fl oz: 1 = 29.5735 ml (rounded).
Measurement notes
Original ingredients
- 1 1/2 fl oz freshly brewed strong black coffeeUS fl oz: 1 = 29.5735 ml (rounded).
- 1 1/4 fl oz rum (such as Cruzan Virgin Islands rum or Bacardi Carta Blanca / Carta Oro)US fl oz: 1 = 29.5735 ml (rounded).
- 1/4 fl oz simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water by volume, optional)US fl oz: 1 = 29.5735 ml (rounded).
- 3 whole coffee beans (optional, for garnish)
Equipment
Espresso machine or dark coffee brewer
Heatproof mixing glass or beaker
Cocktail shaker
Fine-mesh strainer
Small rounded stemmed cocktail glass
Jigger or measuring glass
Instructions
Brew concentrated coffee
Brew fresh strong black coffee as a concentrated double espresso or strong filter brew. If using filter or French press, use a high ratio (such as 15 g of coffee to 90 g of brewing water) to yield enough concentrated liquid, as the grounds will absorb some water.
Measure coffee and add rum
Measure the finished strong black coffee amount shown in the ingredient list into a heatproof beaker, add the rum and optional simple syrup, and stir briefly.
Cool until lukewarm
Let the mixture stand for 2 to 3 minutes, or rest the beaker in a shallow ice bath until lukewarm.
Shake with cracked ice
Transfer into a cocktail shaker, add the cracked ice, and shake hard for 12 to 15 seconds until cold and frothy.
Fine-strain and optionally garnish
Fine-strain into a chilled small rounded stemmed cocktail glass and float the optional coffee beans across the top.
Estimated calories 90 kcal
Nutrition portion: whole recipe · Original yield: 1 cocktail
Source & assumptions
Ingredient-based estimate using USDA SR Legacy (2018), representative labels for Bacardi Superior (40% ABV). About 90 kcal per nutrition portion (whole recipe). Uses the espresso option and a representative white rum at 40% ABV. Excludes optional syrup and coffee-bean garnish. Actual ingredients and preparation affect the estimate.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
To mix the original six-person batch, combine 9 fl oz hot strong black coffee and 7 1/2 fl oz rum. Stir well, cool briefly over ice, and shake in portions with cracked or shaved ice.
Original recipe notes
These notes describe the original recipe. Quantities mentioned here do not change when you adjust servings.
Toye and Adair, Drinks: Long and Short (1925), p. 35: original book. The 1½ fl oz coffee and 1¼ fl oz rum preserve the source's 6:5 ratio. Optional syrup, coffee-bean garnish and detailed cooling and straining guidance are modern additions. Compare Thomas's earlier Coffee Cocktail.
Use rum in the light or gold styles listed in the ingredients. Strong espresso and strong filtered coffee give different textures; measure the finished brew.
Choose a small stemmed glass of about 150 ml capacity to allow room for dilution. The 1925 recipe doesn't prescribe the pictured glass shape.
Read the scaling guide. Times, temperatures and equipment need their own consideration. Open the recipe tool to review and correct individual amounts.
Sources and attribution
Nina Toye & A. H. Adair, Drinks: Long and Short (London: William Heinemann, 1925), p. 35.
Recipe details
- Recipe tradition
- Vintage
- Course or meal
- Drink
- Cuisine
- Other / International
- Source decade
- 1920s
- Browse category
- Drinks & Cocktails