Coffee Float

A few months ago I was shuffling around my grandma's kitchen as I made my morning coffee. I reached for the milk and sugar when my grandma reminisced offhandedly, "I used put milk and sugar in my coffee when I first started drinking it back in high school."

"Really?" I asked. My grandma has drunk her coffee black for as long as I could remember.

"Yes. But then I realized that none of my friends drank their coffee that way, so I quit using milk and sugar. I didn't want them to think I was a sissy."

It was a few days later and I was back at home when it occurred to me that my grandma had, in a roundabout way, called me a sissy. Ouch! Ha ha.

This week I ran out of milk and didn't have time to stop by the store. Loath as I was to let my morning coffee habit suffer, I set about to find a suitable replacement. I was rummaging around my freezer for the milk ice cubes I'd prepared during a more plentiful week when I spied a better alternative. It reminded me of a Lifehacker article I read a few months ago because it contained the two critical coffee-topping components—milk and sugar—but in a radically different form. I present to you:

The Sissiest Coffee Ever



A note: Boiling water for coffee (such as the kind made with a coffee press) puts the served drink's temperature at about 200° F (or about 93° C) but your standard household coffeemaker probably only heats it to about 150° F (or about 66° C), so unless you want lukewarm coffee after adding ice cream, I suggest microwaving a coffeemaker-brewed cup for about a minute beforehand to counteract the heat loss.

PS: It would be remiss of me to not mention one of my mom's ingenious methods regarding coffee flavoring: Go With What Works