Black Russian 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 use of vodka, a typical Russian spirit,
Cocktail England, March 20, 1798: <poem> Mr. Pitt, two petit vers of "L'huile de Venus" Ditto, one of "perfeit amour" Ditto, "cock-tail" (vulgarly called ginger) </poem> "The Oxford English Dictionary" cites the word as originating in the U.S. The first recorded use of "cocktail" as a beverage (possibly non-alcoholic) in the United States appears in "The Farmer's Cabinet", April 28, 1803: The first definition of cocktail known to be an alcoholic beverage appeared in "The Balance and Columbian Repository" (Hudson, New York) May 13, 1806; editor Harry Croswell answered the question, "What is a cocktail?": Etymologist Anatoly Liberman endorses as "highly