What Is Coffee Milk? Rhode Island’s State Drink Explained

Autocrat Coffee Syrup bottles — Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Coffee milk is milk stirred with sweet coffee syrup, the way chocolate milk is made with chocolate syrup. It has been Rhode Island’s official state drink since July 29, 1993, and you’ll find it at diners, wiener shops and in most Rhode Island grocery stores.

How do you make coffee milk?

Stir coffee syrup into cold milk until it tastes right to you; there’s no official ratio. Coffee syrup is a sweetened coffee concentrate, made by running hot water and sugar through coffee grounds, and some people brew their own at home in a saucepan.

Where did coffee milk come from?

It’s usually traced to Providence’s Italian immigrants, roughly 55,000 of whom arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s, bringing the habit of sweetened coffee with milk.
In the early 1900s it became a soda-fountain and diner drink. By the 1930s pharmacy lunch counters served it to kids as an alternative to their parents’ hot coffee.
The first bottled coffee syrup on record was D. Abelsen & Son’s Arabian Brand, documented in 1926 and made at 556 North Main Street in Providence.

Which coffee syrup is the most popular?

Autocrat, from Lincoln, Rhode Island, which started making syrup in the 1930s. In the 1990s it bought rivals Eclipse and Coffee Time and came to dominate the market. Newer syrups such as Dave’s Coffee and Morning Glory are made without high-fructose corn syrup or artificial colors.

How did it become the state drink?

In 1993 the Rhode Island General Assembly chose between two finalists, coffee milk and Del’s Lemonade. Coffee milk won.

What else is made with it?

A coffee cabinet is Rhode Island’s coffee milkshake: coffee ice cream, coffee syrup and milk.
Narragansett Brewing and Autocrat released a limited coffee milk stout in 2013, and Warwick Ice Cream made coffee milk ice cream with Autocrat in 2015.

Where to try it in Providence

Order it the classic way, with hot wieners. Olneyville N.Y. System on Plainfield Street suggests “three all the way with coffee milk and a large fry.”

Sources: Wikipedia, Coffee milk, Olneyville N.Y. System.

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