Wickedpedia

What exactly is coffee milk?

This regional staple is the official state drink of Rhode Island.

Photo Courtesy Ian Abreu

March 5, 2024

Twenty-two U.S. states have designated milk as their official state beverage. Rhode Island is doing it a little differently.

Over 30 years ago, coffee milk eked out fellow Rhode Island favorite Del’s Lemonade to become the Ocean State’s official beverage. A concoction made from a milk of choice and a sweet, concentrated syrup, coffee milk is something that has stuck around southern New England for decades.

“It’s one of those things where kids enjoy it and adults enjoy it alike, and you don’t see that very often,” said Ian Abreu, New Bedford City Council president and owner of Silmo Syrup.

Dave Lanning, the founder of Dave’s Coffee and his brand’s coffee syrup, says that controlling the process of making coffee syrup “from the actual coffee to the bottle” is what allows the product to leave out preservatives.

“We roast the coffee, cold brew it, and then we take the cold brew, combine it with cane sugar and a little bit of agave nectar, and it simmers in these steam pots, the 60-gallon steam pots that we use … and then bottle it right from there,” he said.

While every coffee syrup is made differently, some local brands make it without additives and offer up a decaf alternative.

“We wanted to do an all-natural coffee syrup, something that didn’t have high-fructose corn syrup in it, didn’t have any preservatives. Thankfully, the recipe that we had from home didn’t,” said David Sylvia, who runs Morning Glory Coffee Syrup with his wife Mary. “And then we came up with a decaf version as well … We decided just based on talking to people that there were some people that really enjoy coffee milk, but can’t have any caffeine at all. So we put that product out there for those folks.”

Sylvia says that introducing coffee milk to children when they’re younger will allow the beverage to become something that they grow up with.

“In childhood, it seemed like maybe people used it so that kids would drink milk because it was flavored. It was a little bit more fun,” he said. “And, you know, there’s chocolate milk, strawberry [milk]. So coffee is not a big leap.”

It’s unclear when coffee milk was officially “invented,” but it has been traced back to both the Italian and Portuguese immigrant communities that lived in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts in the 1920s and 1930s.

WICKEDPEDIA:

“One of the theories of how coffee syrup came to be is that the immigrants that came from Italy and Portugal settled in [southern New England] because they were looking for work in the textile mills,” Lanning said. “A very popular drink in their cultures was coffee that had a lot of milk in it and a lot of sugar. They would give that to the children, because the kids like[d] to feel grown up, like they were drinking coffee … but a very doctored-up version of it and a very sweet, milky version of it.”

The first brand of coffee syrup to become commercially available was Silmo in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1932. The company sold and distributed coffee syrup for almost 70 years before shuttering in 2001. Abreu, whose grandfather was a former owner of Silmo, brought the company back at the end of 2022 after noticing a renewed interest for the product.

“People had kept asking me about bringing it back,” he said. “’The flavor was the best. The recipe was the best. No one else can touch it. No one else can beat it.’”

Rhode Islanders and people living on the South Coast of Massachusetts may also be familiar with brands such as Eclipse, Coffee Time, and most notably, Autocrat. In the early 1990s, Autocrat bought out both Eclipse and Coffee Time, according to GBH, and was eventually purchased by Finlays, a British tea company.

Every state has their own regional food and drink — think fluffernutters or Boston cream doughnuts in Massachusetts or Moxie soda in Maine — that unites the people who love that dish or beverage. In Rhode Island, coffee milk has the same type of influence.

“I think every area has their cultural identity with food and drink and stuff like that,” Lanning said. “In Rhode Island, we have coffee milk, we have our seafood, our clam cakes, and different things that are unique to Rhode Island. So I think all of that is very strong.”

For many, a tall glass of coffee milk contains a kick of nostalgia that can transport one to the good old days.

“It represents a taste of home. It represents community. It represents culture,” Abreu said. “It reminds folks about a simpler time.”