美国国家公共电台 NPR What's In That Coffee Cabinet? A Delicious Taste Of Rhode Island History

What's In That Coffee Cabinet? A Delicious Taste Of Rhode Island History 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0002:27repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser 1 to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: 

When you go to Rhode Island, you got to have a coffee cabinet. For you non-New Englanders, that's a drink known as a milkshake in most other parts of the country. So why do they call it a cabinet?

Rhode Island Public Radio's John Bender tried to find out.

JOHN BENDER, BYLINE 2: Hey.

ERIC DELEKTA: How you doing?

BENDER: Good, how are you?

DELEKTA: Good.

BENDER: Walking into Delekta's Pharmacy 3 in downtown Warren, R.I. is like stepping into the past. An old-school silver soda 4 fountain sits atop a stone bar. You can still fill prescriptions 5 in the back. The guy behind that bar is Eric Delekta. And you should know, if you order a milkshake here expecting a frothy, thick drink, you're going to be disappointed.

DELEKTA: A milkshake here is just milk and syrup 6.

BENDER: If you want ice cream blended into that cup, you're going to have to order a cabinet. Delekta's has been serving up the drink with the quirky name since before World War II. Delekta says, he's got regular customers, some daily, just for the beverage 7.

Rhode Island resident, Justin Riley's been coming here for years.

JUSTIN RILEY: It's Rhode Island. It's the drink you've got to have. And you've got to have them here.

BENDER: But as to the name, Riley's stumped 8. So is fellow customer, Lisa Murphy.

LISA MURPHY: I don't know. I know there are different names for it in different parts of the country, but I don't know. It's always been a coffee cabinet to us.

BENDER: All this sleuthing has got me thirsty. So I order - what else? - a coffee cabinet. Delekta takes out an aluminum 9 cup and begins adding ingredients.

DELEKTA: So we put in some coffee syrup.

BENDER: That's homemade syrup, by the way. The exact recipe is top secret, Delekta tells me.

DELEKTA: A couple of scoops 10 of ice cream - we use Hood 11 ice cream and a carton of milk from local surplus dairy. Then we put on the mixer and blend it all up.

BENDER: And that's it, just three ingredients. Likely, the drink was a happy marriage of the state's historically robust 12 dairy production, European immigrants' love of coffee and coffee syrup and modern-day refrigeration technology.

And as for the name, Eric Delekta says the story might be as simple as the drink itself.

DELEKTA: I've heard that they used to keep the machine inside of a wooden box or a cabinet, hence the name. But I don't, definitely, know for sure.

BENDER: But as long as Delekta's keeps churning out these coffee cabinets, perhaps it's fine to just let the mystery be.

Wow. That is insanely good. That's - oh, that's delicious.

For NPR News, I'm John Bender in Rhode Island.