café royale

See also: cafe royale

English

Alternative forms

• cafe royale

Etymology

Pseudo-Gallicism (formed within English), from café (“coffee”), with postpositive (as usual in French) royale f, royal m (“royal”). Although café is masculine, the feminine form royale is used.

Noun

café royale (countable and uncountable)

1. (uncountable) Coffee with brandy, sometimes served with spices, cream, etc.; (countable) a serving of this beverage. [from 1890]
   • 1902, Stanley Waterloo (indicated as editor), “A Glimpse of the Mediterranean”, in The Story of a Strange Career, Being the Autobiography of a Convict: An Authentic Document, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, pages 145–146:

     Café royale was also a favourite beverage with them—a cup of strong black coffee with brandy, the latter being bought separate in a bottle. The coffee could be doctored to any degree of strength. At first, my shipmates would take one portion of brandy, a swallow of café royale, and in would go another, and so it continued until each bottle was emptied.

   • 1913, Edward H. Hurlbut, “The Conspiracy of One”, in Lanagan, Amateur Detective, New York, N.Y.: Sturgis & Walton Company, page 73:

     We had a café royale—with Lanagan pouring his thimble-full of cognac in my glass—and Morton left.

   • 1928 May 15, Thomson Burtis, “Misfortune Hunters: A New Novelette of the Border Air Patrol”, in Anthony M[elville] Rud, editor, Adventure, volume LXVI, number 5, New York, N.Y.: The Butterick Publishing Company, page 174, column 2:

     “I’ve got a little real good brandy in my tent. Like to drop over and have a café royale?”

   • 1934 October, Beatrice Blackmar, “Charity Ball”, in H[arry] P[ayne] Burton, editor, Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan, volume XCVII, number 4, New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, Inc., page 158, column 1:

     Sherry before dinner—when in her fury she had thought it impossible to face her mother’s stupid guests—and a cognac after dinner to satisfy Peter Knorr’s whimsy for a café royale had fanned Hope Borden’s smoldering anger against that intolerably rude boy downstairs.

   • 1951 September, Sam Merwin, Jr., “House of Many Worlds”, in Startling Stories, volume 24, number 1, Kokomo, Ind.: Better Publications, Inc., section XI, page 62, column 2:

     He followed this with a thick and tender small steak, soufflé potatoes, asparagus hollandaise, a tossed green salad and zabaglione, along with a café royale for a finisher.

   • 1952, Peter Ordway, The Face in the Shadows, New York, N.Y.: A[aron] A. Wyn, Inc., →LCCN, page 189:

     I took her coat, built up the fire, and fixed her a café royale while she stood in front of the fire.

   • 1956 January, Virginia Conroy, “I Am the Widow of an Alcoholic”, in Today’s Health, volume 34, number 1, Chicago, Ill.: American Medical Association, pages 56–57:

     There was alwavs steady drinking, in the middle of the night should he awaken, before breakfast, and during it, when he turned his coffee into a café royale with brandy, at lunchtime and at the cocktail hour, and of course, a nightcap.

   • 1956 March, Poppy Cannon, “Cognac: Grand finale for a perfect dinner—Overture to a memory-full evening”, in House Beautiful, volume 98, number 3, New York, N.Y.: Hearst Corporation, page 116:

     Burning with a gem-like flame in a spoon warmed by the hot coffee, a cube of sugar is set ablaze with cognac to make a café royale.

   • 1961, Julie Benell, “Be daring: flaming cookery”, in Let’s Eat at Home, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, →LCCN, page 369:

     After-dinner demitasse cups of coffee can be great fun, either a café brûlot or a café royale. Café royale is so simple that it really doesn’t require a recipe. Just place a lump of sugar in a teaspoon of cognac, ignite the cognac over a demitasse cup of coffee, and then lower the spoon slowly into the cup.

   • 1961, Stewart Sterling [pseudonym; Prentice Winchell], chapter 12, in Too Hot to Handle: A Marshal Pedley Novel, New York, N.Y.: Random House, page 77:

     He was at a banquette in the Stag Bar, with a café royale and sixteen registration cards, when a man who looked like a shy Milquetoast, a bookkeeper with an inferiority complex, deposited his brief case on the leather cushion beside the Marshal.

   • 1964, Borden Deal, The Loser, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →LCCN, page 57:

     He watched her as she took a sip of the steaming coffee, wondering how long she had been in the kitchen, how many cups of café royale she had had already.

   • 1968, James Kerr [pseudonym; Frederick Mugler], The Clinic, New York, N.Y.: Coward-McCann, Inc., pages 71–72:

     Anne ordered a café royale while Peter had hot chocolate with brandy.

   • 1969, Nell Wilson Parsons, chapter 22, in Upon a Sagebrush Harp, Saskatoon, Sask.: Prairie Books, The Western Producer, page 122:

     Tiny cups of café royale were served in the carpeted parlor after dinner, with the wonder of an infinitesimal silver spoon on each saucer!

   • 1973 February 19, “Gin Rummy and Racing Cars”, in Sports Illustrated, volume 38, number 7, Chicago, Ill.: Time Inc., page 33, column 1:

     (His father has since discovered that brandy and medicine mix just fine, and at 81 he will not turn down a café royale.)

   • 2009, Joxe Mallea-Olaetxe, The Basques of Reno and the Northeastern Sierra (Images of America), Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 82:

     Special dishes like prawns, salami, asparagus, and dry-cured hams are served with all the lamb one can eat, topped off with café royale and singing.

Related terms

• coffee royal