Coffee Milk (Rhode Island)

Rhode Island’s official state drink since 1993: cold milk with coffee syrup stirred in, the way the rest of the country makes chocolate milk. It is sweet, milky and mild, a drink for children as much as adults, and it is ordered with hot wieners at a New York System counter or with a grinder at a Providence diner.

Use a bottled syrup (Autocrat, Coffee Time or Dave’s) or the homemade one.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Coffee Milk and Coffee Syrup page.

Ingredients

• 1 cup (8 fluid ounces, 240 ml) cold whole milk
• 2 tablespoons coffee syrup, Rhode Island style, plus more to taste
• Ice, optional

Directions

1. Pour the syrup into a tall glass, add the cold milk and stir until it is an even light tan. Add ice if you like it colder, and more syrup if you like it stronger.
2. For a pitcher, stir 1 cup of syrup into 2 quarts of cold milk; that is the same 1 to 8 ratio.

Notes

The ratio 2 tablespoons to 8 ounces of milk is what Autocrat prints on the bottle, and Taste of Home’s pitcher version (1 cup Eclipse syrup to 2 quarts milk) is the same one part syrup to eight parts milk. Coffee milk without syrup Outside New England the syrup can be hard to find. Ready-made bottled coffee milk, sold in New England dairy cases by Hood and by smaller dairies such as Oakhurst in Maine, is the same drink already mixed. What it is not It is not a latte or café au lait: there is no hot coffee in it, the coffee taste is mild, and it is much sweeter. See the page for the history. The photo A glass of coffee milk made with Autocrat syrup, the bottle behind it.