Black Russian and the blackness of the coffee liqueur. Black Russian The Black Russian is a cocktail of vodka and coffee liqueur. It contains five parts vodka to two parts coffee liqueur, per IBA specified ingredients. Traditionally, the drink is made by pouring the vodka over ice cubes or cracked ice in an old-fashioned glass, followed by the coffee liqueur. This combination first appeared in 1949 and is ascribed to Gustave Tops, a Belgian barman, who created it at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels in honor of Perle Mesta, then United States Ambassador to Luxembourg. The cocktail owes its name to the
Sidecar (cocktail) base rather than rum, and with Cointreau as the sweetening agent rather than sugar syrup. He recommends the same proportions (8:2:1) for both, making a much-less-sweet sidecar. However, Simon Difford, in his book "Encyclopedia of Cocktails", notes Harry Craddock's ratio of 2:1:1 in "The Savoy Cocktail Book", and then suggests a middle ground between Craddock's recipe and the "French School" equal parts recipe of 3:2:2, calling Embury's daiquiri formula "overly dry" for a sidecar. The earliest mention of sugaring the rim on a sidecar glass is 1934, in three books: Burke's "Complete Cocktail & Drinking Recipes", Gordon's "Cocktail & Food