Have you ever been at the end of a long meal and wanted a little something with alcohol, sugar or both, but yet you’re about to fall into a food coma? Or you just want a little extra something in your Saturday morning coffee? The French Nudge is a perfect marriage of all these desires. While I never got the exact recipe from the restaurant where I first had it years ago, the Brasserie Montmartre, this is what I re-created at home from memory after a few reconnaissance missions. One of the ingredients was creme de cacao, which I had none of. So I started playing around with ingredients and this is what I came up with. It was the first drink I ever named; I renamed it the Sylvan Nudge. You can guess why.

Sylvan Nudge

• 6-8 oz hot coffee
• 3/4 oz Grand Marnier
• 3/4 oz cognac
• 1/2 oz Kahlua

Top with fresh whipped cream or foamed milk.  Grate a little fresh nutmeg on top.

MMM, warm deliciousness. Warms you up, gives you a pleasant  feeling and a little jolt of caffeine. Whipped cream will float nicelty above the coffee (until it melts) making a crisp line between the light and the dark. The photo is of milk foamed with a Aerolatte-style milk frother.

Heck, it turns out that a lot of things are good in coffee (assuming you like coffee). I came across a recipe for Monk’s Coffee with a shot of green chartreuse in there and thought “No way.” But I tried it anyway and was amazed at how exotic and grown-up tasting it was.  Frangelico, creme de cacao, Kahlua Coffee Cream liqueur, whiskey, and brandy all have their place in hot coffee drinks. And though Kahlua may seem redundant to use in a coffee drink, it really pairs well with it and adds a certain sweetness and depth that I find welcome.

July 14th is National  Grand Marnier Day, and in honor of that I wanted to share with you one of my favorite drinks for showcasing Grand Marnier.

A few years ago I stopped by a Portland restaurant, the late lamented Brasserie Montmartre, to visit a friend who was working a stint as a bartender there.  Asked if he could recommend a good after-dinner drink, he suggested a Beautiful, which was very popular there after the French meals they served. It became the instant go-to after dinner drink at our house, and has done serious damage to our Grand Marnier stock.

Beautiful

• 1 – 1 1/2 oz  Grand Marnier
• 1 – 1/2 oz  Cognac

Pour both into a snifter and serve.

So simple and yet so satisfying; sweet enough to be appealing when full of rich food, but spicy and complex enough to savor. After a nice dinner, I don’t usually find it necessary to measure this one. It’s a matter of taste, but I wouldn’t go more than 1/2 cognac.

This is such a basic variation that apparently there is even a bottled version available from Grand Marnier called Louis Alexandre. It was created in honor of Louis-Alexandre Marnier Lapostolle, the inventor of Grand Marnier.