Maine, distinct many states, is a “control state,” definition a state supervision maintains some turn of monopolistic control over a placement and/or sale of alcohol. What this also means is that Maine has intensely accurate annals of accurately what Mainers are drinking. It’s how we know that of a 10 many renouned bottles of ethanol sole in a state in 2016, three of them are usually opposite sizes of a same booze.
It would be reasonable to design that code to be, say, Jack Daniels or Smirnoff or Bacardi, something like that. It’s not. The many renouned booze in Maine by an intensely vast margin—nearly two-and-a-half times as renouned as a second-most, in terms of series of cases sold—is a coffee-flavored liqueur called Allen’s Coffee Brandy.
Allen’s is not a brandy, exactly; utterly speaking, a brandy is a suggestion done by distilling wine. Allen’s is technically a liqueur, a neutral pellet suggestion like Everclear that’s been churned with flavorings and sugar. Coffee-flavored liqueurs are not utterly renouned in many of a U.S. In other control states, like Oregon and Pennsylvania, a usually liqueur to make a tip 10 list during a final dual years is Fireball, a cinnamon-whiskey liqueur (it ranks fourth in Maine).
Even weirder, Allen’s isn’t even from Maine—it’s constructed in Massachusetts, usually outward Boston. And yet, a manufacturer tells me, 85 percent of a Allen’s they furnish is sole in Maine. So since is a Massachusetts-produced coffee liqueur some-more renouned in Maine than any vodka or whiskey?
“It unequivocally many started, as the science goes—and there’s always stories told about cocktails that aren’t unequivocally verifiable since people are celebration and not essay things down—that Allen’s started as something a lobstermen would take out with them and put in their coffee as they went out on a H2O during three, 4 in a morning,” says Andrew Volk, a owners of Portland Hunt and Alpine Club, a cocktail bar in Portland, Maine, that uses Allen’s in some of a signature drinks.
M.S. Walker, a primogenitor association of Allen’s, is a indiscriminate distributor that started creation a possess liquors shortly after it was founded in 1933. Allen’s, as a brand, was combined “in a late 1960s,” according to an email sent to me by an M.S. Walker representative. “Our owner Maurice Walker’s daughter Ruth married Leo Allen—and Allen’s code was born,” he writes. It’s done of a neutral citrus-based liqueur, churned with coffee extract.
Allen’s is frequency dipsomaniac straight. Much some-more common is possibly to flow some into a crater of coffee, or to decoction with divert in a pint potion over ice. The latter can be systematic in any of several ways. “Allen’s and milk” would be flattering standard, yet other names, like “fat donkey in a glass,” “moose milk,” “sombrero,” “leg spreadah,” or any of a dozen some-more artistic options can be listened via a state. My favorite is “lily of a tundra,” a riff on a lily-of-the-valley, a flower internal to northern Europe. The lily-of-the-valley is flattering and smells intoxicatingly sweet, yet it’s also impossibly poisonous.
Allen’s is unequivocally honeyed and easily caffeinated, with a sour ambience of burnt coffee. “It’s done inexpensively, not done to be consumed on a own,” says Volk. “There’s a humorous copper corner to it on a finish, yet that’s since it’s something we decoction with divert or coffee, something to cloak your taste and cover adult that humorous aftertaste.” Allen’s costs about 9 dollars for a 1.75 liter bottle. At 30 percent ethanol by volume, it’s not utterly as clever as whiskey or vodka, yet it’s not that distant off. “Anybody that grew adult in Maine knows Allen’s, anybody that moves here fast discovers Allen’s. It’s a partial of a informative tapestry of Maine,” says Volk.
There are pockets around a universe where a sold surprising liqueur, like Vana Tallinn in Estonia, takes a place of dirt-cheap vodka or malt booze as a go-to inexpensive buzz. It’s a multiple of a low cost and a sold lean that coffee has over New England that’s authorised Allen’s to turn such a vital seller in Maine.
“New England in ubiquitous we consider has a genuine thing for splendidly strong, common coffee, and we consider a mania with Dunkin [Donuts] highlights that,” says Volk. A Men’s Health ranking from 2014 totalled variables like a volume of income a domicile spent on coffee, series of coffee shops per capita, and commission of people who splash some-more than 5 cups a day in sequence to find a many “coffee-obsessed” cities in a U.S. The tip three, in descending order, were Burlington, Vermont; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Portland, Maine. Seattle ranked ninth.
It’s wily to explain accurately since New Englanders splash so many coffee. One reason competence be that winter in Maine lasts about 7 months, and it’s good to have something comfortable to drink. There’s also a probable change of a Puritan, blue-collar work ethic. Coffee is a libation we splash to get things done; it is not, during slightest in New England, an arise to lay around and chat, a approach tea is in a Commonwealth of Nations. Coffee is an indicator of work.
As with any cheap, renouned alcohol, there are fear stories compared with Allen’s. After a Four Loko debate in 2010, Allen’s fast dismissed any accusations that it, too, is a dangerous caffeinated drink—the caffeine turn in Allen’s is expected flattering low—but it still pops adult in crimes opposite a state. Most, though, disagree that Allen’s simply happens to be popular, that there’s zero in sold about it that’s dangerous.
Allen’s hasn’t been reclaimed by a new multiply of mixologists in any estimable numbers, really. Volk is one of a few regulating it in complicated cocktails in Maine. “From kind of a cocktail geek, cocktail barkeeper perspective, we can provide it like any other coffee liqueur out there,” he says. “It usually has this informative credentials to it, this inbred story in Maine.” The Hunt and Alpine Club serves a chronicle of a revolver, a cocktail consisting of scotch and coffee liqueur, with Allen’s, as good as a coffee martini (cold decoction coffee combine from internal coffee emporium Tandem, run, and Allen’s) that’s always on a menu. “For us it’s not like oooh, let’s play with this thing—it’s not during all a joke,” says Volk. “It’s a good product, there’s this cold tie to it, we’re happy to offer it.”