How to Make a Dominicana, the Decadent Rum and Coffee Liqueur Cocktail

True hell, it’s been said, is that on your last day alive, the person you are meets the person you could’ve become. 

This is self-help book stuff. It’s attributed to business coach and motivational speaker Dan Sullivan, but you can also find it variously identified with Tony Robbins and David Goggins, the kind of sentiment people will sometimes attribute to Socrates because there’s apparently no law against doing things like that. It is generally offered as a kick in the pants to get your life in order, i.e. “the person you could’ve become” if you’d just started waking up at 4:30 am to do cold plunges a little sooner, and we mention the idea here not just to casually sprinkle some existential dread into your life, but to say this: When the White Russian really starts committing to self-betterment—lifting weights and doing infrared saunas while drinking adaptogenic mushroom tea, etc—the Platonic ideal to which it aspires is a cocktail called the Dominicana.

The Dominicana is a gorgeous drink, a showstopper, directionally similar to the White Russian but a different experience altogether. It comes to us from 2001, one of the first creations of Sasha Petraske at his then-newly opened Milk & Honey, and is a perfect demonstration of the man’s ethos of precision and simplicity. He started with three ingredients—coffee liqueur, cream, and a spirit—and set about making something new. This is the same starting point as the White Russian of course, but Petraske went a different way: He stirred the spirit and liqueur on ice and strained it into a coupe, then borrowing a trick from the famous Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista in San Francisco, then semi-whipped some heavy cream and laid it gently on top, like a blanket of driven snow.

There are several things to remark upon here. The first is the precision of it all. It’s an unlikely combination of elegance and decadence. The second is the restraint. The reason cocktails from Petraske’s bars so often graduate to the ranks of the neo-classics is because of this hesitation to add what is ultimately unnecessary, a philosophy that cocktails aren’t so much like a tree to which you add ornaments as they are a sculpture to which you chisel away the superfluous. Many if not most bartenders would start adding things like vanilla or chocolate or amaretto, they’d put salted maple in the cream or infuse the spirit with toasted sesame seeds, and all of those would be pretty good, but Petraske’s restraint, his innate feel for timelessness, prevailed.

What we’re left with is a cocktail that’s a full-fledged neo-classic, the indulgence of a White Russian or a Brandy Alexander with nearly the refinement of a Manhattan. Don’t get me wrong, I love White Russians, and if I’m bowling or wearing a robe in the afternoon there’s really no substitute. But the Dominicana is a different kind of experience entirely. It’s dessert after a nice meal. It’s an Espresso Martini but without the botox. It’s perfect after a classy brunch with friends, perhaps a bit bleary eyed having recently lost an hour to the time change but still looking great and feeling great and staring determinedly into the year ahead, ready to live your best possible life.

Dominicana

Combine rum and liqueur in a mixing glass with ice and stir 15 to 20 seconds until chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass and gently pour the semi-whipped cream on top so it spreads across the top of the liquid and blankets the top. Garnish with nutmeg, cinnamon, or nothing at all.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Rum: You want aged rum, some with a little color, and the deep warm vanilla depth it brings.The Dominicana is named as such because it calls for Dominican rum, and both Ron Matusalem and Brugal work gorgeously. In any case, what you want here is a “Spanish style” smooth, mild, easy aged rum—if it has some color and comes from a Spanish speaking country (and/or starts with “Ron,” the Spanish word for rum,) it’ll be great. There are a ton of examples of this: Plantation 5, Don Q 7, Flor de Caña 7, Bacardi 8, you name it.

Coffee Liqueur: Petraske used Caffe Lolita as his coffee liqueur, which is a great choice if you can find it. Otherwise, my advice here follows the White Russian template more than the Espresso Martini template, i.e. use a coffee liqueur that has a bit more rich roundness and a bit less intense coffee-darkness. Mr. Black, my favorite for Espresso Martinis, makes a fairly joyless Dominicana. Better are Tia Maria, Kahlua, and, if necessary, Borghetti, which I prefer here in that order.

Heavy Cream: Follow the Irish Coffee advice for the cream—you want to whip it until it’s thickened but still pourable, so it flows easily over the top of the drink. You can do this with a whisk in a bowl, with an espresso milk frother, as simply as putting it in a mason jar (or a protein shaker with a whisking ball) and shaking for about a minute.