February 27: National Kahlua Day

February 27th is National Kahlua Day. Here's all you need to know about Kahlua.

1. In case you don't know what it is, it's a coffee flavoured liqueur from Mexico which also contains Rum, corn syrup and vanilla bean.
2. The word Kahlua means “House of the Acolhua people” in the Veracruz Nahuatl language spoken before the Spanish Conquest. It was also a 1930s street slang word for Coffee.
3. It was invented in 1936 by a bunch of guys who got sick of their day jobs in Veracruz, Mexico and decided to open a bar. One of them had the idea of mixing arabica coffee with alcohol, and his friend, a chemist, perfected the recipe. By 1940, it was being exported to the USA.
4. Kahlua is the best selling coffee liqueur in the world.
5. If you've never tasted it, here is the description from the Kahlua website describing what it tastes like: "Its deep Brown colour is attractive and deep. Kahlúa Original offers enticing scents of bitter-sweet coffee bean and roasted chest-nut and multi-layered flavours of black coffee and sweet Butter."
6. Production of Kahlua is a slow process - it takes about seven years to make. The coffee is grown in the shade, so it takes longer to mature than if it was grown in the sun, and rather than rip apart the fruit to get at the coffee bean inside, it's placed in a bag until the flesh of the fruit falls off naturally. This takes about six months. Meanwhile, the base spirit, which is made from sugarcane and is similar to rum, is aged for seven years before it is combined with coffee extract, vanilla and caramel.
7. In the 1950s the drink was advertised using a series of Mayan statuettes which belonged to one of the employees who happened to collect them.
8. In the 1960s, the company had the (for the time) unusual feature of being run entirely by women. The female management team were known as "The Kahlua Ladies".
9. A 1 ounce serving of Kalúa contains 20% alcohol /42 proof, zero fat, 14 carbs, and 91 calories. Because it has coffee in it, it also contains caffeine - about 25% the amount you would find in a similar volume of coffee.
10. Cocktails made from Kahlua include the Black Russian and the B52. The Black Russian is a cocktail of vodka and coffee liqueur. Traditionally a Black Russian is made by pouring the vodka over ice cubes or cracked ice in an old-fashioned glass, then adding the coffee liqueur. This cocktail first appeared in 1949, when Gustave Tops, a Belgian barman, created it at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels in honour of Perle Mesta, then U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. The B52 is a layered shot made with Kahlúa, Baileys Irish Cream, and a Grand Marnier (or triple sec or Cointreau). The ingredients should separate into three distinctly visible layers due to their relative densities. This drink was invented in Canada in the 1970s. It may have been invented by Peter Fich, head bartender at the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta, who created several new drinks and named them after his favourite bands.

I Write Fiction, Too!

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

Like my author page on Facebook for news on new books and blog posts.

Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest

Check out my Writing blog