Café Mazagran (French Coffee in a Glass)

The nineteenth-century Paris café mazagran: strong black coffee served in a tall glass or a footed mazagran cup, with water and sugar for the drinker to mix in with a long spoon, and a splash of brandy if wanted. It could be hot or cold; by 1866 a Paris slang dictionary defined it as cold coffee with seltzer.

The drink is named after Mazagran in Algeria, where a French garrison held a fort in February 1840. See the Mazagran page for how much of the story is true.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen.

Ingredients

• 120 ml (½ cup) strong black coffee, such as a double espresso with a little hot water, or moka-pot coffee
• 60 to 120 ml (¼ to ½ cup) water, hot or cold, or cold soda water
• 1 to 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon brandy or cognac, optional

Directions

1. For a hot mazagran, pour the hot coffee into a tall heatproof glass or a mazagran cup and bring the water, sugar and brandy separately, so the drinker thins and sweetens it to taste with a long spoon.
2. For a cold mazagran, sweeten the hot coffee, let it cool, and pour it into a tall glass. Top with cold water, or with soda water for the 1866 seltzer version, and add the brandy if using.

Notes

Where this comes from Littré’s dictionary describes black coffee served in a deep glass with a long-handled spoon to mix in sugar, water and sometimes brandy, which the customer adds. The Trésor de la langue française defines it as black coffee, hot or cold, mixed with water and sugar, with or without brandy, in a deep glass; it dates the word for the drink to 1866, in Alfred Delvau’s dictionary of Paris slang: cold coffee with seltzer. William Ukers (1922) describes a summer café mazagran in France diluted with water to taste, and in the south of France cold coffee with seltzer, “a coffee highball”. The proportions This kitchen’s starting point. Nineteenth-century sources leave the dilution to the drinker. The photo A glass mazagran cup, made in Portugal, standing in for the drink.