The Black Russian is a cocktail of vodka and coffee liqueur. It contains either three parts vodka and two parts coffee liqueur, per the Kahlúa bottle's label, or five parts vodka to two parts coffee liqueur, per IBA specified ingredients. Traditionally the drink is made by pouring the vodka over ice cubes or cracked ice in an old-fashioned glass, followed by the coffee liqueur.
This combination first appeared in 1949, and is ascribed to Gustave Tops, a Belgian barman, who created it at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels in honor of Perle Mesta, then U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. The cocktail owes its name to the use of vodka, a stereotypical Russian spirit, and the blackness of the coffee liqueur.
Read more about Black Russian: Variations
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or russian:
“Richard. Give me a calendar.
Who saw the sun today?
Ratcliffe. Not I, my lord.
Richard. Then he disdains to shine, for by the book
He should have braved the east an hour ago.
A black day will it be to somebody.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot of land, blind in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.”
—Honoré De Balzac (17991850)