Pumpkin Spice White Russian co*cktail Recipe - The Cookie Rookie® (2024)

FAQs

Where did the White Russian co*cktail come from? ›

The drink was conceived in 1949 when Gustave Tops, a Belgian barman, created the co*cktail, along with its sister co*cktail, the black Russian – a White Russian without any cream - at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels in honor of Perle Mesta, then U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg.

It can really be attributed to coffee lovers in the late 1990s when the hot new beverage of cafes became a pumpkin spice flavored coffee, and the craze spread like wildfire across America in 2003 with the introduction of Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Latte.

A fourth theory suggests that the color white was associated with the west, and Belarus was the western part of Rus' in the 9th to 13th centuries. The name Rus' is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, thus Belarus is often referred to as White Russia or White Ruthenia.

A White Russian is swirled with heavy cream, while a Black Russian...isn't. It is simply coffee liqueur and vodka, no white in sight, making it less like a dessert and more like an alcoholic wake-me-up.

The Black Russian co*cktail 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 original recipe for the white lady was devised by Harry MacElhone in 1919 at Ciro's Club in London. He originally used crème de menthe (specifically, Giffard's Menthe Pastille), but replaced it with gin at Harry's New York Bar in Paris in 1929.

In 1997, the Coen Brothers were inspired to make White Russians the drink of choice for The Dude, the instantly iconic protagonist of The Big Lebowski, in part due to Jeff Dowd, one of the inspirations for the character, and his own (brief) love of them. As Dowd told HuffPo, “Do I drink White Russians all the time?

In contrast to the classic White Russian, the Blind Russian trades the traditional cream for Irish Cream Liqueur.