Rhode Island’s official state drink is coffee milk—in most places, kids grow up drinking chocolate milk but not here. Rhode Island Coffee Milk. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Details such as prices and hours are subject to change. Enjoy our fairtrade certified coffee and relax at our friendly coffee shops. David and Mary Sylvia began making Morning Glory Coffee Syrup out of their Dartmouth home in 2001, using a recipe that had been a staple in David’s family for nearly a century. But coffee milk is the state drink of Rhode Island (since 1993), so you shouldn’t leave the state without trying it. “What’s not to love?”. It is, simply, milk flavored with coffee syrup—just as chocolate milk is flavored with chocolate syrup. “So it was important to us to make something we’d want our family to drink.” They were also the first local makers to introduce a decaf coffee syrup. Who did Howell & Co. hire to supply the coffee syrup? Indeed, the concept of a cold, sweetened coffee drink wouldn’t have been a novelty to the Italians and Portuguese; just consider the caffe shakerato of Southern Italy—a refreshing mix of espresso, sugar, ice and sometimes cream, shaken vigorously until smooth and frothy—and mazagran, a popular Portuguese sweetened, iced coffee drink that has roots in Algeria. Now, Dave’s coffee syrup has a thriving wholesale presence, primarily within New England—but also in a few high-design locations beyond, like Magnolia Market, the Waco, Texas–based shop owned by lifestyle moguls Chip and Joanna Gaines, as well as select Whole Foods. New Harvest is a roastery churning out high-quality coffee to distribute throughout the state. One of the state’s quirks is the drink called the cabinet which to the rest of North America is called a milkshake or ice cream shake. 3. Coffee Milk (RI State Drink): I grew up in Rhode Island and I have been living out of state for about five years now. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Rhode Island soon became home to several coffee syrup manufacturers, including Autocrat, which still has its headquarters in the Ocean State. For a truly adult beverage, Rhode Island’s most recognizable beer brewer, Narragansett, partnered with the syrup company to create the Autocrat Coffee Milk Stout — a limited-edition full-bodied coffee-flavored stout beer that fuses the two iconic brands. L'Artisan Cafe & Bakery. But maybe you’ve never set foot in the Ocean State and wouldn’t know a New York System Wiener if you tripped over it. (Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune) The Brook’s Herbal even contains a recipe for coffee syrup, made by infusing a pound of coffee in two pints of water—hello, cold-brew concentrate!—then adding sugar and simmering for eight hours before straining, cooling and bottling. The first coffee syrup came out of Warwick in 1938, from a brand called Eclipse; today Autocrat is the leading producer, having acquired Eclipse and another company, Coffee Time, over the years. 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 … Why does coffee milk matter? In grade school, I had a choice of cartons: white milk, chocolate milk or coffee milk. It comes from the book "I'll Have What They're Having- Legendary Local Cuisine" page 206 . As the trend grew, coffee syrup was produced commercially—starting in the early 1920s—and it can still be found in any Rhode Island … 110 reviews Open Now. Main Magazine Culture Food & Drink Health Home & Style Things To Do Best of Rhode Island ® Shop Local We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Finally, in 2014, after four generations as a family-owned and operated business, Autocrat itself was purchased by Finlays, a sprawling British tea conglomerate that consolidated the syrup and extract business even further. Today I am sharing a twist on a regional favorite. Some of the best coffee shops in Rhode Island, plus coffee recipes, learn about cupping, latte art, how Nitro Cart got its start and so much more. Here’s the thing: it may be a provincial drink, but it’s also been a remarkably influential one. 7 People talking Reviews, Tweaks & More Reviews, Tweaks & More READY IN: 1min. A common argument goes that you can get lemonade or beer just about anywhere, but ask for coffee milk outside of Rhode Island and its neighboring towns, and … And it all started with a tiny state with a passion for “light and sweet.”. Finally, in 2012, when the company began roasting its own beans, Lanning decided it was time to try his hand at making a modern coffee syrup—and like the Sylvias, he was committed to avoiding inferior ingredients and preservatives. guides you to the best local dishes & drinks in INGREDIENTS Nutrition. Recipe by Laury. Twenty-five years later, Frappuccino sales still account for 11 cents of every dollar Starbucks makes. These cookies do not store any personal information. But this drink is Rhode Island through and through. While a few other beverages have also achieved a high level of fame in the Ocean State (namely Del’s Lemonade and Narragansett beer) coffee milk earned the official top spot in 1993 thanks to its “uniquely Rhode Island” reputation. Or do diners insist that the perfect pairing for a snappy chili dog (or, in local parlance, a “New York System Hot Wiener”) isn’t a frosty lager, but a cold glass of milk spiked with sweet coffee syrup? Maybe you’ve heard of it? (Photo: Sean Benham/flickr) In 1993, coffee milk was declared the official state drink of Rhode Island and not everyone was thrilled. Grab your gang and hit up these cool cafes to snag a cup of joe and bring some much-needed caffeine into your life. If you are not familiar with Rhode Island coffee milk, let me introduce you! But more on that later. Seven Stars Bakery. “What’s not to love?” Of course one of the very best … Good to know: If it’s decadence you’re after, you’ll want to find a coffee cabinet, which is essentially a coffee milk blended with coffee ice cream, making it more milkshakey. “The children drank what the parents did,” she says. Call Us Toll-Free Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Popular since at least the 1930s, the drink remains a fixture at kitchen tables and diner counters across Little Rhody and along the state’s borders on the south coast of Massachusetts and the Connecticut shore, not merely as a nod to nostalgia, but a living piece of the homegrown food culture. Lately, coffee milk has even found its way to the hip precincts of New York City’s East Village: Matt and Emily Hyland met in Providence during their college days, and their acclaimed new restaurant, Violet, is an ode to Rhode Island and to that treasured time and place. Olneyville New York System (multiple locations including 20 Plainfield St., Providence, map), family-owned since 1946, has just the right old-school lunch counter. Jigger's Hill and Harbour Diner. Some of the best coffee shops in Rhode Island, plus coffee recipes, learn about cupping, latte art, how Nitro Cart got its start and so much more. 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. By the Civil War, a taste for the stuff had crossed the pond: Godey’s Lady’s Book published a recipe for coffee syrup that was advertised as a perfect (and conveniently portable) pick-me-up for weary troops. or 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. Her work appears regularly in The Wall Street Journal’s Off Duty section and has been featured in publications including Saveur, Vogue, Cooking Light, Real Simple, Every Day with Rachael Ray, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and Businessweek. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Robert C. Hibben, executive secretary of the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers, was reportedly so flabbergasted by the local appetite for the stuff that he quizzed a gathering of members in Boston about it. Dave’s Coffee. Finally, they picked a name: Frappuccino—a playful amalgam of cappuccino and frappé, the New England slang for milkshake. Finally, in the early ’40s, the Autocrat company of Lincoln, Rhode Island, joined the fray. Newport Creamery branches are a good bet for those. “My family lived in a triplex house with my grandparents and godparents and cousins, and every time I’d go in to visit my godmother, she’d always have a Viceroy cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a coffee cup in her hand—always!” he says with a laugh. 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. As Lanning’s coffee business took off, he expanded, opening a headquarters in Narragansett and another retail outlet in Providence. The Coffee Cabinet (or coffee milk) is the states official drink. In Rhode Island, coffee milk is available just about everywhere—diners, convenience stores, delis, donut shops, supermarkets, dairies, creameries, souvenir shops, and of course, in your own home! More recently, Massachusetts native chef Matt Jennings wrote that a diet of coffee frappés made from Brigham’s Ice Cream was his “gateway drug” to the adult pleasures of caffeine. In fact, because it’s so sweet, coffee milk almost tastes like chocolate milk, except with a subtle coffee flavor. So, what is it and why has it created such a cult following? 150+ cities. She lives in an old house in Brooklyn with her husband and young son, Sam. “It took some tinkering, but we ended up with a formula using nutty, chocolatey Brazilian beans that pair so perfectly with the sugar.”. “I really wanted to focus on the quality of the beans, and to only use coffee and cane sugar,” he says. Google Images/John Rahrig. 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. The ingredients are simple: cottage cheese cubes, chickpea powder, salt, pepper, mango powder. Two Rhode Island-based companies, Eclipse and Autocrat, also began producing coffee milk syrup commercially in the 1930s with great success. In its early days, Rhode Island coffee syrup might have been a homemade affair, but by the time Leite was being weaned on the stuff, a few enterprising local companies had long since begun marketing commercial versions. Howell and his marketing director, Andrew Frank, were looking for a way to boost their shops’ sales during the steamy New England summers when, according to a 2012 profile in Boston Magazine, their knowledge of the Yankee taste for cold, creamy, coffee drinks led them to start tinkering with iced cappuccino concepts. Specialty Coffee roasted in Providence, Rhode Island. Considering the drink’s delicious sweetness, pleasing in such a childlike way, and the types of lunch-counter establishments that traditionally serve it, coffee milk reminded us just a little of our beloved New York egg cream. Consider this: In 1992, George Howell, a specialty-coffee pioneer, owned a small chain of cafés in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the Coffee Connection. sizes. We’ve rounded up the best of the state’s eats as part of our second annual guide to the best food and drink in every state. I assume the other milks would be just as good, but it's hard to make almond milk drinks taste amazing, and they have the secret! If you’ve bought a bottled iced coffee or grabbed a supermarket carton of coffee ice cream sometime in the past two decades, there’s a decent chance an Autocrat syrup was inside it. But coffee milk is the state drink of Rhode Island (since 1993), so you shouldn’t leave the state without trying it. “There were little cliques,” remembers Leite. Sarah Karnasiewicz is a James Beard Award–winning writer, editor and cook. Why do they call them cabinets and where does the name originate? Autocrat continued making coffee syrup for Starbucks for years, and the unfathomable success of that product also spurred the company to expand and upgrade their wholesale and commercial coffee syrup business, selling flavorings to companies all around the world that were suddenly eager to cash in on the global iced-coffee boom. Dave’s came along … Order: A simple coffee milk, sweet and creamy and utterly satisfying. and 5 lb. In North Stonington, just a stone’s throw from the Rhode Island border, farmer Brianne Casadei combines Dave’s coffee syrup with milk from her pasture-raised herd of Jersey cows to make bottles of Grade A cream line Terra Firma Farm Coffee Milk, which she sells at her farm’s dairy as well as local markets. By using the site, you agree to our. 5. ©2020 Eat Your World, LLC - All Rights Reserved. Rhode Island Coffee was voted the UK's Coffee Shop Chain of the Year 2011. Chalk it up to a Napoleon complex or just a colorful Yankee quirk, but the denizens of the nation’s smallest state have always worn their provincialism as a point of pride—and never more so than when it comes to food. “[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. The pakoras are shallow-... Read more. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. How to make coffee syrup in five easy steps. International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers, The Cook’s Dictionary and Housekeeper’s Dictionary, according to a 2012 profile in Boston Magazine, Coffee Milk: A Living Piece of Rhode Island Drink Culture, America Embraces Bittersweet Italian Sodas. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Both The Cook’s Dictionary and Housekeeper’s Dictionary and The Brooks Culpepper’s Herbal Improved, published in London in the 1830s and 1840s respectively, contain recipes for a “coffee milk” that’s made by boiling a dessert spoonful of ground coffee in a pint of milk for a quarter hour, then “clearing” the concoction with a shaving or two of isinglass (a fish-derived gelatin). Antonio Manaligod / Dose. This is a popular comfort food in Rhode Island. Though Lanning’s syrup was initially stocked only at Dave’s Coffee outlets, the dark, rich taste—not to mention the stylish amber glass bottles in which it was packed—generated immediate buzz. Quick Bites, Healthy $ Menu “Cozy Setting, Great Breakfast” “Nice Staff, Great Food” Order online. “It really tastes like a coffee milkshake,” says Casadei. 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