By Penny & Ed Cherubino

We’ve always been surprised that dining spots that serve espresso drinks and ice cream don’t have affogatos on their dessert or after-dinner drink menus. We hope that as these traditional Italian drinks gain traction on social media, the hospitality industry will recognize that this can be a welcome and profitable add-on to a meal tab.

Affagato Ingredients

Let’s begin with translation. In Italian, an espresso is called “un caffè.” Affagato means “drowned,” and “correcto” means corrected. Finally, gelato is the ice cream traditionally used in these drinks. Therefore, an affagato, in its simplest form, is gelato or ice cream drowned in espresso.

An affagato correcto adds a small amount of an alcoholic spirit. For what it’s worth, there is also a “un caffè correcto,” which is an espresso with a spirit added.

Your choice of spirit (usually about half an ounce) can take the drink two ways. Liquors like Amaretto, Frangelico, Sambuca, Kahlúa, or Cream Liqueurs make the drink sweeter. Dry spirits like Grappa, Rum, Bourbon, Irish whiskey, or Brandy can add flavor without added sweetness. Remember, the base flavor you are adding to is coffee. Try to choose additions that complement the strong, bitter taste of espresso.

Affagato History

The website Tasting Table offers the following history of affagato. “While most of us can probably agree that affogato is delicious, where it came from is disputed. According to Porte, some believe that the affogato dessert gained prominence only in the 1950s in Italy, around the same time the ice cream industry became modernized. However, some say that a medieval friar called Angelico from the Piedmont region of Italy spontaneously blended ice cream with espresso, creating affogatos.”

While the origin is in Italy, the world soon caught on, and it was added to cafe and restaurant  menus worldwide. However, Tasting Table also points out that the word affogato was not added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary until 1992.

Elaborate Affagato

The springboard for this column was a video by David Lebovitz featuring Margot Lecarpentier of Combat Bar in Paris. She prepared an elaborate affagato using a chocolate sorbet David had made. She combined a cocktail of liquors, an espresso, and then added toppings. Her method was to put the sorbet into a metal dish, pour her liquor mixture, then the espresso, and top it with shaved chocolate, cocoa nibs, and salt.

This is the type of recipe on social media that is bringing affigatos to a new audience. But there is still a place for the simplest version that we make at home.

Size Matters

Penny has used a small, simple affagato made with a 2-ounce scoop of ice cream and one shot of espresso from our Nespresso machine. She can vary the flavor by using different espresso capsules. This treat comes in at around 150 calories, and she uses it when she’s craving something special. The ritual of making the drink and savoring it is part of the experience.

Final Thoughts

Choose the container for your affagato carefully to ensure the combination of cold and heat does not cause the glass to crack from temperature shock. At home, we make ours in bone china cups that are exceptionally strong and stable across a range of temperatures.

And if a place you love has espresso and ice cream, ask them to make an affagato for you. We asked, and soon it became a menu item and frequent order at our favorite pub.