Nasty, stinking, bitter, puddle water
is how coffee was once described in the 17th century.
Now this drink has been blamed for treason, immorality, even impotence,
and it has caused so much controversy that it's actually been banned several times throughout history
but that's okay because this 1887 coffee cocktail that I'm making today contains no real coffee.
So thank you to Mr. Black coffee liqueur for sponsoring this video as I try to make a coffee-less coffee cocktail,
and explore the history of illegal coffee
this time on Drinking History.
So this coffee cocktail is definitely a little odd seeing as it contains no coffee.
Now the recipe comes from the 1887 edition of Jerry Thomas's 'Bartenders Guide',
and he or more likely whoever compiled it seeing as when this edition came out Jerry Thomas was already dead
is quite up front in saying
"The name of this drink is a misnomer, as coffee and Bitters are not to be found among its ingredients,
but it looks like coffee when it has been properly concocted and hence probably its name."
And so when you want a coffee looking cocktail but you don't have any coffee this is the perfect drink
because all you need is a teaspoon of powdered sugar, two ounces of port wine, one ounce of brandy, and one fresh egg.
And yes this recipe will have raw egg in it so if you are worried about salmonella
make sure that your egg is clean, not cracked and well refrigerated at least in the U.S.
Different countries have different rules but in the U.S. do all those things.
Give it a vigorous dry shake meaning without the ice, that'll help get it nice and frothy.
Then add the ice and give it another shake until it's well chilled and then strain it into a glass.
And then he says to grate a little nutmeg on top before serving and that's it the coffee cocktail of 1887 and
it does kind of look like coffee. I mean it doesn't look like a cocktail,
looks more like coffee. Let's give it a taste.
[Slurp]
I actually really like it. Doesn't taste like coffee nor is it supposed to.
The egg it gives kind of a creaminess to the texture that I really like,
and you get that lovely foam on top, it's the only way that you're going to get that
which I like. The nutmeg adds just a-
you get that kind of on the nose but then once you taste it you're really tasting the Port more than anything.
You get a little bit of the burn from the brandy but not a lot of the flavor.
What's so weird
is that it tastes like there's milk in there. It's very, very creamy.
Maybe it's just looking at it but yeah I like that.
Now if you do want a cocktail with a true coffee flavor then Mr. Black our sponsor today is the way to go.
Mr. Black is cold brew coffee liqueur made with 100
arabica beans that they actually roast themselves.
There are no artificial flavors or preservatives or anything like that so
all of the flavor is really coming from those beans so they really have to go with the best they can find.
This is not the first time that I've tasted this.
I actually have had this multiple times. I really, really like.
It' excellent.
It really does have a super coffee flavor without any of the bitterness
because they add just a little bit of sugar. It's not sweet by any means but
it kind of kills that coffee bite
and just leaves the kind of mildly pleasant flavor.
It's found in some of the top bars and restaurants in the world including
the London Savoy which is where Escoffier used to work.
So if you want to be like the Savoy Hotel in London and stock your bar with Mr. Black coffee liqueur then just click the link in the description
which will take you to curiada.com and you can get a bottle delivered right to your door,
and use my code max10 to get $10 off. If Curiada doesn't ship to your state or your country
then just visit mrblack.co and you can look up where to buy Mr. Black near you,
and they also have a lot about their Wonderful Coffee cocktails on that website and I'm actually going to teach you how to make one of those
after I talk to you a little bit about illegal coffee.
So throughout history there are multiple stories of when coffee or
usually the drinking of coffee in public has been banned.
Mecca in 1511, Cairo in 1539,
and its consumption is said to have been punishable by death in Istanbul under Sultan Murad IV.
The issue with most of these bands is that the details and really the stories about them weren't written down until years after
they supposedly went into effect and then were often repealed.
Also the stories often tend to be propaganda of later ages
like these stories of Sultan Murad IV stalking the streets at night dressed as a commoner
with a sword so that if he saw anyone drinking coffee he could behead them on the spot.
Now could that be true? Maybe but there isn't really any reason to think that it was
other than much later stories often told by people who didn't care for him and the Ottomans.
In fact most of the stories surrounding bands on coffee seemed to be apocryphal like
when coffee first came to Europe in the 16th century the Catholic Church basically said that
it was a drink of the devil because it was associated with Islam because that's where it was coming in from but
Pope Clement VIII enjoyed it so much that he decreed that they should baptize the coffee in order
to steal it away from Satan and deliver it to Christ. Now
could that have happened? Yes because there are some crazy stories
especially when it comes to Popes. They once put a dead Pope on trial
and found him guilty because he didn't make much of a defense because he was dead,
but there are contemporary sources that talk about that whereas the coffee being baptized? No.
But there are several times in history when coffee was banned or at least attempted to be banned,
and they do have more evidence to support them really happening,
perhaps most famous is in 17th century England.
So coffee came to England in the mid 17th century and was touted as a bit of a cure-all saying as
"It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with
the Stone, Gout, Dropsie, or Scurvy and that their Skins are exceedingly clear and white."
With such a reputation it's no wonder that coffee houses began sprouting up all over the kingdom.
A place where the elite of English society could meet and discuss science, economics, politics and do so soberly.
These are the Penny Universities which I did an entire episode on which I will put a link in the description
and have that probably pop up after this video but it seems that the Ladies of London
were not such fans of the "...Newfangled, abominable, heathenish liquor called coffee."
At least that's how a 1674 pamphlet printed in London described it,
a pamphlet ostensibly written on behalf of
"several thousands of buxome good women, languishing in extremity of want."
In want of what you ask?
Well it seems that coffee "has so eunucht our husbands and crippled our more kind gallants,
that they are become as impotent, as age, and as unfruitful as those deserts once the unhappy Berry is said to be brought...
They come from the [coffee house] with nothing moist but they are snotty noses, nothing stiff but their joints..."
That is the men of London were no longer in the mood and coffee was to blame.
"For can any woman of sense or spirit endure with patience, [when] she approaches the nuptial bed,
expecting that a man with sprightly embraces should answer the vigor of her flames,
she on the contrary should only meet a bed full of bones and hug a meager useless corpse rendered as sapless as a Kixe,
and drier than a pumice stone, by the perpetual fumes of tobacco, and bewitching effects of this most pernicious coffee."
So clearly the libidness ladies of London were laid low by the lust lessening latte,
and even worse it made the men very, very chatty.
"[At the coffee houses men] soon learned to excel us in talkativeness:
a quality wherein our sex has ever claimed preeminence:
for here like so many frogs in a puddle, they sup muddy water,and murmur insignificant notes
till half a dozen of them out-babble an equal number of us that are gossiping, talking all at once in confusion,
and running from point to point insensibly... they trifle away their time...
and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking, nauseous puddle water."
Strong words against coffee, though in all likelihood it was not the randy ladies of London
who actually wrote the pamphlet but one of the many satirists of the age
but regardless it played right into the hands of the King.
King Charles II did not care at all for coffee houses,
but it had nothing to do with the drink's alleged effect on the male libido but rather on the male mind.
These sobering effects on the male mind for as the women complained that men were were gossiping in the coffee houses
the king worried that they were gossiping about him and musing on the many modern Progressive thoughts of the time,
and Charles had very good reason to be wary of these kinds of conversations because they were similar types of conversations that
30 years before led to the beheading of his father Charles I.
And so on December 29 1675 Charles II issued a proclamation for the suppression of coffee houses.
He claimed that the multitude of coffee houses springing up across England and Wales
caused "many Tradesmen and others to misspend much of their time, which might and probably would otherwise
be employed in and about their lawful callings and affairs."
But far more insidious at the meetings in the coffee houses
"False, malicious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad,
to the defamation of his Majesty's Government and to the disturbance of the peace and quiet of the Realm."
He therefore called for a ban not on coffee itself but on the selling of coffee in the same place
where it was consumed i.e. you could buy it but you had to take it home to drink it.
And it wasn't just coffee but also "Chocolate, sherbet or tea."
The punishment was a rather steep five pound per month fine,
and if the proprietor continued he would "receive the severest punishments that may by Law be inflected."
The law was meant to go into effect on January 10th but it proved so unpopular namely
amongst the King's own courtiers and ministers because they liked frequenting the coffee houses
that it never actually went into effect and so coffee houses continued and actually
proliferated throughout Britain and became one of the main places where the ideas of the Enlightenment were shared
just as Charles II had worried.
Fortunately the War on Coffee is no longer and the only thing that will stop me from having a cup of cold brew in the morning is if if I run out
which does happen from time to time so even if you do run out of coffee you can still make the
coffee-less coffee cocktail of 1887 or you could also make a cocktail with Mr. Black
because many of them don't actually require any additional coffee but the one that I'm going to make does.
It requires some espresso that you can also make it with cold brew and that is the espresso Martini,
so popular, not too historic. I think it started in the 1980s around 1983 and
seeing as that's when I was born I don't like to think of that as historic so let's call it a modern cocktail.
When you're using Mr. Black the coffee cocktails are so much simpler than than without.
This one it's basically two parts or two ounces of Mr. Black and then one part espresso
and obviously ice in there...
and then give it a shake and then strain it preferably into a chilled glass of some sort.
See it gets all nice and frothy.
Then you garnish with a few coffee beans and that's it espresso Martini.
So easy, so fast, so delicious.
So whether you're going to make this or the coffee-less coffee cocktail of 1887 all the ingredients all the liquor ingredients are available at curiada.com
and use my code max10 for $10 off and I will see you next time on Drinking History.