Maine Champagne

Believe it or not, the great state of Maine has a local cocktail.

I learned this recipe from my good friend paramedic Jerry O’Neil of Northstar Ambulance in Rangeley, Maine.  (Strangeley is also the home of the Wilhelm Reich Museum.  Make of that what you will.)

The official cocktail of Maine is the Burnt Trailer, and it depends on Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy.  Allen’s “Brewed in Lewiston, Aged on the Truck” Coffee Flavored Brandy at one point occupied four of the top  ten slots on Maine’s best-selling alcohol list, one for each size bottle that they make.  Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy is actually made in Somerville, Massachusetts, but its best market is Maine.  It’s hard to find outside of New England.

The other ingredient of a Burnt Trailer is Moxie.   As in, “What do you call a six-pack of Moxie?”  “A life-time supply.”  Actually, no, Moxie is a soft drink that requires moxie to drink.   At one time Moxie was America’s best-selling and most popular soft drink.  That lasted right up to the moment that a second soft drink went on the market. Like Allen’s, it takes a very determined lad to imbibe it.

Nowadays you generally find Moxie only in New England.  Think of it as a bridge from the modern world to the days of patent medicines.

There’s a Moxie Festival every year in Lisbon, Maine.

So, to the Burnt Trailer recipe.

Fill a pint glass half-full with ice cubes.  Add one shot of Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy.  Fill the rest of the way with Moxie.  Sip!  Enjoy!  Find out why it’s called a Burnt Trailer!

Note: There are other drinks you can make with Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy.  The one with a  name I can use in polite company is the Sombrero, which is Allen’s half-and-half with milk or half-and-half.  (That same concoction has another, far less polite, name.)  The variant of the Burnt Trailer made with Allen’s and Diet Moxie (yes, there is such a thing) has a name that is … also impolite.  The Allen’s web page has a list of drinks with wonderful, polite names.  No one, so far as I know, drinks them.

Don’t try to make this with Tia Maria or Kahlúa.  Those wimpy things are only 40 proof, unlike Allen’s (60 proof).  They also taste good.   So, Allen’s or nothing!  And don’t use Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, or any of those weakness-promoting unhealthy drinks — Moxie is the stuff (it has a druggist on the label so you know it’s good for what ails you) that keeps backwoodsmen back in the woods.

Anyway, I made a Burnt Trailer.   I tasted it.  “Distinctive!” I said.    Doyle tried a sip.  “Yech!” she commented.

I finished it.  That left me with half a bottle of Moxie.  So what could I do?  I made another.