My new Bialetti Moka Express and a bottle of grappa.
I was talking with a colleague earlier this week about our mutual love of grappa, a potent digestif I only came to appreciate during a bone-chilling January week spent in the Veneto. She told me that when she was in Venice, also during a very cold January, she would drink caffè corretto literally “corrected coffee.”
The drink is a mixture of grappa and espresso, sometimes with sugar, though the sweetened version is usually drunk in the morning, she said, by very old men. I bought a three-cup Bialetti Moka Express the next day and aim to start working on my own caffè corretto . I’m nearing the bottom of a bottle of excellent Sarpa di Poli grappa I bought from Plumpjack in Noe Valley, so I may very well need to invest in some more.
In Italy there are variations on the caffè corretto such as sipping a few drops of grappa just after a sweetened espresso-ammazza caffè-or adding a bit of grappa to the last little bit of espresso left at the bottom of the cup-resentin. Commence experimentation!