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Drink

Coffee Cocktail

A cocktail made with sugar, egg, Port wine, brandy, and cracked ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Coffee Cocktail

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a shaker, combine sugar, egg, Port wine, and brandy.

  2. Fill the shaker with cracked ice.

  3. Shake well, then strain into a glass and serve.

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. Port wine + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + port winetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Egg
Adds body and a silky, frothy texture when shaken with the liquids.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the alcohol and the wine.
Port wine
Contributes sweetness, fruit flavour and body to the drink.
Brandy
Provides the spirit strength and warming aroma of the cocktail.

The step that matters

Shake well. Vigorous shaking with ice chills and dilutes the drink and emulsifies the raw egg into a frothy texture. A short or weak shake leaves it cold but thin and poorly blended.

“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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