A hot after-dinner coffee gilded with cognac, the Café Royale sets the bitter depth of fresh coffee against the round warmth of grape brandy and a whisper of burnt sugar. A brandy-soaked sugar cube burns on a spoon over the cup and is stirred in once it caramelizes, leaving the drink lightly sweet and faintly toasty — an Irish Coffee with no cream on top and cognac where the whiskey would be.
built · Footed coffee mug
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Pour the hot coffee into a warmed footed coffee mug.
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Rest a teaspoon across the rim and place a sugar cube on it; soak the cube with a little of the cognac.
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Carefully ignite the cognac-soaked sugar and let it flame until the sugar caramelizes and the flame dies.
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Stir the melted sugar and the remaining cognac into the coffee.
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Serve hot, after dinner.
No single inventor is on record — the drink took shape as a common preparation in 19th-century European cafés, and it also answers to the names Parisienne coffee and French coffee. George J. Kappeler's 1895 manual Modern American Drinks lists a "French Café Royal" of three ponies of black coffee to one of brandy, served after dinner, though his version came cold and without any flame. Today the name belongs to the hot cup finished with a flaming sugar cube, and it has nothing to do with the 1937 Café Royal Cocktail Book by William J. Tarling, a separate publication that simply shares the name.