Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week’s Cocktail, The Sleepwalker!

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. It’s 20 degrees outside for the foreseeable future in Ohio, so a hot drink is in order. But not another rum cocktail; I’ve overplayed my hand with that. Let’s try this tequila and coffee drink that promises to be a comfort on its own or to play nice with a cookie or two. Time for a Sleepwalker. Here’s the recipe:

4 oz espresso or strong coffee

2 oz bartender’s whipped cream

1 ½ oz Exotico blanco tequila

½ oz simple syrup

½ oz Grand Marnier

2 dashes cocoa bitters

Dry shake all ingredients except whipped cream. Pour into a coffee cup and microwave for 1 minute. Add whipped cream. Garnish with an orange twist, a pinch of ground cinnamon, and a small cookie.

Bartender’s whipped cream: Pour 4-6 oz. heavy whipping cream into a plastic squeeze bottle. Remove the spring from a cocktail strainer and place it in the bottle. Screw the bottle top back on, cover the tip with your finger, and shake for 30-45 seconds.

Paul Ramirez of We Got Company originally created this cocktail. According to Punch Magazine, Ramirez “set out to make a bourbon drink so I could utilize my mother’s family bourbon ball recipe as a garnish. In the end, I decided to pivot to my father’s Mexican heritage and use tequila. We revamped the recipe and the tequila chocolate ball was born.” I’ll leave it to better bakers than myself to craft a tequila chocolate cookie, but this drink is a wonderful accompaniment to any leftover sweet Christmas nibble.

Mr. Ramirez’s recipe works equally well “cold or hot” according to Punch, but it’s clearly designed to be served cold per the recipe as written. It’s not easy to warm a drink behind the bar, or to get hold of good fresh coffee. The home bartender has easy access to fresh java and the tools to warm up a drink, so I decided to take advantage of those tools in my version.

I find that the biggest challenge with any coffee cocktail is keeping the balance of sweet to bitter right. Most of the coffee cocktails I write end up far too sweet. I’m convinced that the high sugar levels in most coffee drinks come from an attempt to counter the bitterness of stale coffee; like I said, it’s hard to get a fresh cup of joe behind the bar. I think this ratio of syrup to coffee is about right, but feel free to adjust to your liking.

Paul Ramirez’s recipe called for a quarter ounce of Fernet Branca instead of Grand Marnier, and I badly wanted to like that version. I adore Fernet Branca. But the more I tasted the cocktail, the more it seemed like the Fernet was there to be edgy instead of comforting. Adding whipped cream softened the cocktail considerably, but in the end I decided to make a safer choice and swap in a classic orange curacao. A hot tequila drink is already a bit of a sell; adding menthol bitterness was a bridge too far. Try it both ways if you’re curious … or swap in another liqueur if you’d prefer.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Espresso or Hot Coffee: If you are a serious coffee lover, investing in a Moka pot is worth every penny. It is so much cheaper than a home Italian espresso maker, and little cups of Latin-style espresso on a cold night are a delight. Feel free to use drip-pot coffee if that’s what you have. Don’t use bottled cold brew coffee here; I have it on good authority that warmed cold brew is terrible.

Bartender’s Whipped Cream: This whipped cream won’t form peaks, but it will sit on top of a hot cocktail quite well. I’ve used this trick a few times, and it’s a must for killer White Russians or other coffee drinks.

Exotico Tequila: If blanco’s too harsh in this drink for you, try a reposado or anejo tequila. Personally, I think the strong agave notes of blanco tequila stand up to the coffee. Whatever you do, use a tequila that is 100 percent blue agave; anything less is a bad mix of mezcal and cheap Mexican rum.

Simple Syrup: Equal parts sugar and water, heated until the syrup is clear. It practically makes itself; I whipped up a batch in the microwave while the coffee was brewing.

Grand Marnier: Grand Marnier is an orange curacao, an orange liqueur with a cognac base. Triple sec uses vodka as its base, and tends to have more citrus-adjacent herbal flavors like bergamot. Feel free to swap in amaretto, creme de cacao, or your liqueur of choice.

Cocoa Bitters: A little cocoa note to tie everything together sure doesn’t hurt. Mr. Ramirez uses “Aztec bitters,” which has a touch of heat and cinnamon to it, but you’re more likely to find cocoa bitters at your local liquor store.

In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below!

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We aren’t linking to Amazon anymore, because fuck Bezos. Go read Coffee: A Dark History by Antony Wild instead. Coffee has been the drink of slavery and revolution in turns for centuries; adding tequila to the mix sure can’t hurt its rebellious roots.

You can find me on Bluesky at @samuraigrog!

OPEN THREAD! DRINK!