Ingredients:

1 C (6-8 oz) strong coffee
1-2 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk
Cubed ice in a tall glass

The Process:

Brew 1 C strong coffee. Mix with sweetened condensed milk. Chill for a while in the fridge and pour over ice in a tall glass.

Tips & Gotchas: Make the coffee strong. The way I do it personally, I use our home espresso maker with 2 tbsp finely-ground coffee and less than 8 oz water (not really an espresso because there’s a lot more water). Making one cup in a standard home coffeemaker won’t do the trick because it’s next to impossible to get a good strong cup this way. Use an espresso maker and mix one part espresso with one part water; or use a French press with a lot of ground coffee. Milk and sugar doesn’t seem to work – sweetened condensed milk is the way to go. You really need to chill it for a bit (or at least let it sit to cool down significantly), and use big iced cubes instead of crushed or pellet ice; otherwise the hot coffee will melt the ice quickly and you’ll end up with weak lukewarm coffee, which is really bad.

Since it’s morning, coffee is what’s on the brain. A coworker informed me a few minutes ago that he had made coffee in the kitchen in our office, making a “blend” from 2 of the 3 kinds on hand – “dark” and “medium”. Sure, the kinds of coffee have some impact on the tastiness – we think of “dark” roasts to be “stronger” than “light” (colored) roasts . But my experience has convinced me over time that the ratio of coffee molecules to water is the most significant factor – if you use a “dark roast” or “the good stuff” (like Boca Java as opposed to Folger’s), you’re not necessarily going to get a better cup of coffee – you have to get the proportions right.

It’s beyond the scope of this article to talk about all the nuances of that it means to “get the proportions right” – several factors are in play, including the coarseness of the grind, the volume of coffee and water, the extraction time, water temperature, etc. But in general, the “more coffee” you use in the batch, the stronger it will be. For me, it’s always better to err on the side of “more”, that is, if you’re going to mess up, mess up on the strong side.