Coffee Cocktail (Disclaimer: No Coffee)

This nineteenth-century specialty drink is from the 1887 edition of Jerry Thomas’s The Bar-Tender’s Guide, or How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks. Thomas died in 1885, two years before this edition; the editors expanded the cocktail section from ten recipes in the 1862 edition to twenty in the 1887 edition.

The editor added a disclaimer, noting that the drink did not contain coffee, and went on to note that it did not contain bitters, either. Bitters were the ingredient that defined the cocktail category in the beginning, and that disclaimer noted a growing trend to include a wider group of mixed drinks in the cocktail category. The color and texture of the drink evoke coffee with cream and sugar.