Allen's Coffee Brandy is a
coffee
Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
-flavoured
liqueur
A liqueur ( , ; ) is an alcoholic drink composed of Liquor, spirits (often rectified spirit) and additional flavorings such as sugar, fruits, herbs, and spices. Often served with or after dessert, they are typically heavily sweetened and un-age ...
popular in
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
, especially
Maine
Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
. Allen's Coffee Brandy is prepared and bottled by M.S. Walker, Inc. of
Norwood, Massachusetts. The beverage is 60 proof.
In the 1990s into the 2000s, the product was the best-selling liquor product in Maine for about 20 years. Sales in 2008 were 1,100,000 bottles. Gary Shaw, vice president of M.S. Walker, has noted that his company ships "a phenomenal amount" of brandy to Maine each month.
Uses
Allen's Coffee Brandy is typically served in a drink consisting of equal parts brandy and milk in a
pint glass
A pint glass is a form of drinkware made to hold either a United Kingdom, British imperial pint of or an United States, American pint of . Other definitions also exist, see below. These glasses are typically used to beer glass, serve beer, and a ...
, sometimes called a "Fat Ass in a Glass". According to Gary Shaw, an executive of the drink's parent company, the brandy's popularity in Maine may originate from fisherman adding it to coffee, "maybe to kind of warm 'em up from the inside as well as the outside". Allen's is also popularly mixed with another Maine staple,
Moxie, to produce the "Burnt Trailer", or (with Diet Moxie), the "Welfare Mom".
Consumers of Allen's are known to call the drink by various humorous names, including "Hancock County Panty Remover", "The Champagne of Maine", "Lewiston Martini", and numerous others.
New concoctions and mixers have resulted in new variants and naming conventions. "Maine Breakfast" (alternatively: "Corker") is an Allen's and oat milk.
Legality
Allen's came into some legal question when the United States placed a
ban on caffeinated alcoholic beverages. However, with a significantly lower caffeine content, produced by the coffee flavorings and not added intentionally as with (the original)
Four Loko and the other alcoholic
energy drinks targeted by the ban, Allen's Coffee Brandy is still legal to sell.
See also
References
External links
Allen's Coffee BrandyM.S. Walker, Inc.
{{Alcoholic drinks
Maine culture
Alcoholic drink brands
Brandies
Coffee liqueurs