Booze holds the answer to what’s ailing your coffee.
How to make your coffee even more enjoyable
If you’re still having trouble adjusting to the whole idea of autumn — and with it, the return of school and school lunches, heightened expectations at work, and so on, ad nauseam — you can be forgiven for perhaps indulging a bit more than usual in your favourite source of caffeine. I suspect North Americans aren’t alone in coffee consumption spikes in the fall.
Speaking of spiking, Italians have a little trick to make one’s refuel that extra bit more energizing. In Italy, talk of “correcting” one’s coffee with a bracing dose of spirit is an old joke that has settled into everyday language. Ordering a “caffè corretto al grappa” — that is, a “coffee ‘corrected’ with grappa” — means you get an espresso with a healthy side shot of spirit if your barista is your friend, or a less generous helping of hooch if you’re not.
In Toronto, Forno Cultura on King West feels just like a bakery and café in Italy, and serves the local area accordingly: morning caffeine addicts get their jolt and baked treats; lunchtime office workers munch on pizza and sandwiches; and on the way home, you can grab an aperitivo with your a loaf of deliciously authentic bread — or indeed order a spiked coffee. Owner Andrea Mastrandrea says anise- flavoured spirits like sambuca tend to correct the coffees of southern Italy, while austere, moonshinelike grappa gives northern caffè correttos their edge.
Forno Cultura even has sweets to go with each option: Mastrandrea gave me a Venetian bussola di brunello to soften the vegetal bite of a grappa-laced caffè, while a pistachio and anise biscotto with almond and orange paired beautifully with a sambuca version.
Don’t sweeten your coffee, but dip the cookie. “The way I was brought up, there wasn’t supposed to be sugar in coffee,” he says. “That’s what the biscotto was for.”
The ideal, Goldilocks option for lacing your caffè correttos, according to many Italians, is Varnelli L’Anice Secco Speciale. It’s licorice flavoured, but sophisticated and very dry. Orietta Varnelli, who represents the fourth generation running the boutique family distillery in the Marche region, says her father told her that a teaspoon of anise liquor is enough, “So you don’t cloud the flavour, robustness, colour or heat of the coffee.”
Use t he remainder to rinse your glass, and drink that down, too.