Every winter we make the pilgrimage to Huber’s, the oldest restaurant in Portland, to have Spanish coffees. The bartenders make a show of lighting the booze on fire and pouring the liquors into the glass from above their heads. We could never perform these feats at home, but this formula is otherwise faithful to their time-tested recipe.
Run around the rim of a thick, squat wineglass with a stem:
Frost the rim of the glass with:
Add to the glass:
Tilt the glass slightly, and light the liquor with a match (if you have trouble lighting it, use two matches at once). Holding the glass by the stem, rotate it slowly so the flame caramelizes the sugar all the way around the rim. This will take a couple minutes and the glass will become very hot. To extinguish the flames, add:
Garnish with:
Wait a minute or so before drinking, as the rim of the glass will be very hot.