Coffee Milk
by James Norton on 9-20-2010 • Category: Coffee Products • 1 comments
There is a lot more to Rhode Island than just being the smallest state in our nation. Certain foods have become statewide traditions and part of the state’s history. For example, Rhode Island is famous for Coffee Milk and Coffee Cabinet. It is said that if you travel more than 10 miles from Rhode Island, people will not know what this drink is. If you are from Rhode Island and live somewhere else, you may crave it.
Coffee Milk (kaw-fee milk) – A lot like chocolate milk but with coffee-flavored syrup. It is milk with sweet coffee syrup added (two tablespoons of coffee syrup to 8 ounces of milk). The drink is served either by the glass or the half-pint (in a waxed-cardboard carton). I believe Rhode Island is the only place in the world where you can get this drink.
But, is coffee not good enough? Has milk overstayed its welcome? While it's not clear, one thing is indisputable: Coffee milk is recognized by the powers-that-be in Rhode Island.
To understand coffee milk, it might be best to understand coffee syrup, first. Autocrat brand coffee syrup has only five listed ingredients: high fructose corn syrup, water, coffee, "other natural flavors" and potassium sorbate. The syrup, which comes out as a brown liquid of bloodlike consistency, is then mixed with milk at the following ratio: 2 Tbsp. to 8 oz.
By itself, the syrup isn't a very good time. Imagine that you like your coffee black, but also with a lot of sugar. Say, 50% coffee to 50% sugar. Then you drink off most of your coffee, leaving only the really sugary sludge at the bottom. Then, after letting it cool down to room temperature, you put your tongue in the sludge. That's a good approximation of what happens when you enjoy Autocrat Coffee Syrup straight up.
But that's not really the manufacturer's fault. They want you to dilute their syrup with a wholesome effluent shot from the bottom of cows — milk.
When you do this, the nasty stuff darkens your milk from pure white to a pale brown reminiscent of what you get after letting your Cocoa Krispies overstay their welcome.
And the taste?
Not bad. Seriously, not bad. Moreover, it's distinctively not bad, thus explaining how an entire state of hundreds of people could get addicted to the stuff, thereby supporting a company called Autocrat Inc.
The syrup lends your milk an almost cloying sweetness tempered by a taste that conjures up both malt and coffee at the same time. And what if you added this syrup to coffee? You could enjoy the hot new taste of "coffee coffee." The potential is limited, but exciting nonetheless.
One coffee syrup mystery, however: it comes in an incredibly odd bottle. It's ribbed soft plastic, and features four little embossed singing birds sort of dancing around above the label. While a bird perched on the "o" of Autocrat may be the syrup's mascot, one has to ask — why a bird? Birds don't like coffee. They don't drink milk. You can't make a bird into either coffee, or milk. You can't milk a bird.
Website
www.autocrat.com
