Black Coffee
Put six tablespoonfuls of pulverized coffee into a percolator. Pour slowly over it three cups of boiling water. Let it stand for a few minutes after it has filtered, and then serve in after-dinner coffee cups, with sugar if desired.
A demitasse coffee from the first year of national Prohibition, written for a drip pot rather than the stovetop percolator the word suggests today. The proportions are sound; the grind and the water temperature are where it needs adjusting.
- "Percolator" here means a drip potThe instruction to pour boiling water slowly over the grounds and wait for it to filter describes a French drip pot or biggin — a two-chamber pot with the grounds held in a perforated basket above the serving vessel. A modern pour-over cone or a Chemex behaves the same way. A stovetop percolator, which recirculates boiling water through the bed, will not follow these directions.
- Grind"Pulverized" coffee in this period meant ground almost to a powder. That grind will clog a paper filter and over-extract in a cone. Use a medium-fine grind, roughly what a drip machine takes.
- Water temperatureWater at a full rolling boil scorches the grounds and pulls out bitter compounds. Take the kettle off the heat and let it settle for about thirty seconds — 195-205F is the working range.
- ProportionsSix tablespoons to three cups works out at about 1.5 tablespoons per 6-ounce cup, a little weaker than the modern standard of 2 tablespoons. By weight that is roughly 30 g of coffee to 700 ml of water.
- "Let it stand a few minutes"This means hold it warm while it settles, not reheat it. Coffee held over direct heat or brought back to a boil turns flat and acrid within minutes; a warmed pot or a thermal carafe is the better option.
- YieldAn after-dinner coffee cup holds 2 to 3 ounces, so three cups of water gives roughly eight to twelve demitasse servings — enough for a dinner party rather than a household breakfast.
- ServingSugar is optional, per the original: black coffee in this sense means no milk or cream.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the flood of drink books published as national Prohibition arrived in 1919-1920, when American households suddenly needed several hundred things to offer guests that were not wine or spirits. Coffee sections in these books carry unusual weight, and this recipe calls for the small demitasse cup, with sugar if desired. The pot described is the French drip type, popular in America through the nineteenth century and traditionally associated with de Belloy around 1800 — the attribution is customary rather than documented — with the aim of brewing coffee without boiling it, an idea then still competing with the stovetop percolator and with the older habit of simply boiling grounds in water and settling them with eggshell.