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Drink

New Orleans Coffee Brulo

A spiced coffee drink made by igniting sugar, cloves, cinnamon, orange peel, and brandy, then adding coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

New Orleans Coffee Brulo

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and flame

  1. Place a lump of sugar for each person in a wide-mouthed bowl.

  2. Add the whole cloves, broken cinnamon stalks, and minced orange peel.

  3. Pour the brandy over the mixture.

  4. Light the mixture, stirring occasionally.

Add coffee and serve

  1. When the flame goes out, pour in the strong black coffee until the bowl is full.

  2. Stir once more.

  3. Ladle the brew into coffee cups.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + mandarin orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brandy
Ignites to flame the mixture and adds a warm, aromatic alcohol flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the brew and caramelises slightly as the brandy burns.
Whole cloves
Contribute a warm, pungent spice aroma to the brew.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody aroma and warmth to the coffee.
Mandarin orange peel
Adds bright citrus aroma and oils that lift the spiced flavour.

The step that matters

Light the mixture, stirring occasionally. Alcohol vapour ignites readily, so the flame must be lit away from anything flammable and allowed to burn out on its own. Stirring spreads the warmth and releases the spice and citrus oils into the brandy, giving a more even flavour.

Swap the mandarin orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, clove, cinnamon, brandy, coffee):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Mandarin orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, cinnamon, brandy, coffee. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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