According to The New York Times , it likely originated with diner and drugstore owners who served leftover coffee grounds with a whole lot of milk and sugar, thereby creating a … Rhode Island Coffee Milk. Eventually, Frank settled on a formula using ice, espresso, milk and coffee syrup that could be prepped in a soft-serve machine. Need a coffee milk recipe? And though its charms may be little known beyond New England, it turns out that coffee milk—like the scrappy region from which it sprung—has had a mark on American history that’s both outsize and undersung. In every issue of the James Beard award-winning magazine and on our website, we celebrate drinks as a distinct culinary category, deserving in-depth exploration of the people, places, cultures and flavors that make the world of drinks so fascinating. At Olneyville New York System, the iconic family-run Providence greasy spoon that was awarded the James Beard foundation’s American Classic award in 2014, the classic order is two “all the way” wieners and coffee milk. How to use coffee syrup: Make official Rhode Island Coffee Milk, glaze meats for an amazing BBQ, candy vegetables and yams, use as a mixer in cocktails, add to your favorite baking recipes, blend delicious milkshakes (aka coffee cabinets), or drizzle over ice cream! “[And] the tradition of sweetening continued [when they came] here.”, Food writer David Leite, who grew up in a Portuguese-American household during the 1960s in Fall River and Swansea, Massachusetts, recalls that coffee milk was a staple of his childhood. That concoction, by the way, is known as a “coffee milk” and in 1993 was officially decreed Rhode Island’s official state beverage, narrowly edging out another Ocean-State original, Del’s Frozen Lemonade. Come join us for the annual Quonset Point half marathon /5k. As Lanning’s coffee business took off, he expanded, opening a headquarters in Narragansett and another retail outlet in Providence. Rhode Island … Finally, in the early ’40s, the Autocrat company of Lincoln, Rhode Island, joined the fray. First on the scene was Silmo Packing Company, founded in the South Coast town of New Bedford, Massachusetts, by Portuguese-Americans Louis Silva and Carlos Desouza Morais. In her history of Italian-American food, We Called It Macaroni, Nancy Verde Barr describes how Southern Italians had a habit of heavily sweetening their dark brews. Still, even today, the red and yellow Autocrat bottle with the birdy on it is a fixture in thousands of Ocean State kitchens. This Certified course will have you traveling through the old SeaBees Naval … So, what is this mysterious coffee milk and why do you need an awesome coffee milk recipe? Coffee syrup manufacturers sprang up, making it possible for people to make coffee milk in their own homes. A coffee cabinet is an ice cream-based milkshake-style beverage found almost exclusively in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, consisting of coffee ice cream, coffee syrup, and milk. So much so, that Rhode Island designated coffee milk the official state drink in 1993. As pure and basic as you can get...Fill a glass with ice cold whole milk. 10 Homemade Hot Drink Recipes Using Organic Milk. History. “If you lived up north you might drink Eclipse, but on the South Coast it was only Autocrat, all the time.”. Coffee milk is thought to have originated from Italian immigrants who came to the US East Coast and who often made bitter coffee which they heavily sweetened. Silmo began selling coffee syrup in 1932; six years later, Alphonse Fiore added coffee syrup to his product line at Eclipse Foods in Warwick, Rhode Island, and started to give Silmo a run for their money. With cheeky cartoon ads and eye-catching red and yellow bottles adorned with the cheerful image of a chirping bird, Autocrat soon dominated the scene. [9] In December 2013, the Narragansett Brewing Company partnered with Autocrat Coffee to market a limited edition "coffee milk stout ." In 2006, he launched Dave’s Coffee, a small specialty-coffee bar in the same old farmhouse where he and his wife owned a clothing boutique in Charlestown. Sarah Karnasiewicz is a James Beard Award–winning writer, editor and cook.