Chomp! Café Au Lait-ivator!

By Ron Aiken

 

Café Au Lait-ivator!

There is no doubt among any of us that “Café au lait” sounds much more awesome than “coffee with milk.”

It’s not even a competition, so thorough is the beatdown between the two names. So complete is the victory, in fact, that if you go to a coffee counter and try to order “coffee with milk” instead of “Café au lait,” the barista is required to throw packets of raw sugar at you until you leave.

It’s always been a goal of Chomp! to invent a coffee drink of some kind, but it appears I’m a couple hundred years late to the game. I enjoy so many different variations of the bean-based beverage – espresso, Americano, cappuccino, latte, etc., etc. – that designing something remotely unique or of a singular/signature nature is darn near impossible.

The only think I can think of, locally, is Drip’s honey habanero latte, which is sensational. Because I happen to have one, here is a picture of that:

Now THAT is a good-looking drink.

 

I say all of the above so that I may now say that I think I may have invented one. Truly. I might’ve just done the unthinkable, coming off the bench in extra innings to deliver a hit no one saw coming – a Café Au Lait with not one, but TWO shots of espresso.

Now, I hear ya, I hear ya. “You’re just mishmashing two things and basically making a coffee/latte/espresso combo,” you say, which is how you always are, poo-pooing stuff. To which I say, “Indeed!” Because I tell you it is G-O-O-D good. Great, even. I am not even kidding; It is out of this world.

It also will rock your world, caffeinetically. It’s so powerful, it’s probably unethical to serve. I came up with it at my new downtown walking-distance favorite place, Immaculate Consumption on S. Main St. Though it’s hardly new and always awesome, since Chomp! has changed gigs it now is just a block-and a-half away. Which means its Chomp!’s new regular.

 

Morning at Immaculate.

 

And his new regular drink, ladies and gents, is this one.

 

I put four raw sugars into it. You may put however many you like. Six is also OK.

 

IMMAC already has a two-espresso drink called the “Motivator,” and with some help from staff we’ve come up with a way to order it incorporating the two names – the “Café Au Lait-ivator”. It’s difference from a latte because of the coffee and different from an Americano because of the cream. It’s just it’s own, frothy, super-caffeinated, super-tasty bundle of goodness that you will think about when you’re not together and make special trips just to see.

It’s like the cute foreign exchange student that moves into your neighborhood over the summer and thinks you’re cool because they haven’t met anyone else yet. You know they’re awesome, they think you’re cool because you’re American but you know once school starts and they see everyone else, the gig is up.

(Now Chomp! has never had that experience in real life, it is important to note. He just has a vivid imagination about what his old insecure, 12-year-old mini-Chomp!-self wanted to happen but didn’t. Carry on.)

Except now, I’m having that experience with this drink – so much so I’m not even sure I want to submit this column because I like being the only one who orders it or knows what flavor paradises lie within.

It’s a problem-solver, there’s no doubt. Feeling groggy at 10:30 a.m. or 2:30 p.m.? This’ll fix that. In fact, it lifts you up so quickly and so well could be called the “elevator,” (which also rhymes with “au lait-ivator).

So now, it’s up to you to order it. I cannot recommend this drink enough. Forget your powdered pumpkin spices and your cinnamon dolce packets and drink from the fountain of life for a change, straight from the tap, and see if in five minutes you’re not a new person altogether full of wonderful ideas and a smile for everyone and a spring in your step so big you can leap over the State House in one bound. Meet ya there? Til next time, au lait-ivatorites!

 

 

 

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