The Gibraltar: Fool’s Cappuccino
Posted by TheShot on 06 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: Add Milk, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Quality Issues
We had originally posted this as an addendum to our recent review of the new, more permanent installment of the Blue Bottle Coffee Co. in the Ferry Building Marketplace. However, the strange phenomenon of the Gibraltar deserves its very own post. Originating here in San Francisco, the Gibraltar has since spread to Los Angeles (Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea), New York (Café Grumpy), and now London (Climpson & Sons). The purpose of this post is to demystify, debunk, and, well, defrock the Gibraltar before the misconceptions behind this invasive species are allowed to propagate any further.
So what is the Gibraltar? Technically speaking, it’s the registered name for a line of glassware tumblers from Ohio-based Libbey Inc..
So what does any of this have to do with coffee? Prior to opening Blue Bottle Coffee Co.‘s first SF café in Hayes Valley in January 2005, owner James Freeman experimented and tuned variables for his café by making cappuccinos in 4.5-oz versions of these cheap restaurant supply glasses. He offered these practice runs to his staff and to employees of the Dark Garden corset shop down the street.
Word of mouth spread, and these test beverages needed a name. Steve Ford, then a barista and roasting colleague of James at Blue Bottle (and now head roaster at Ritual Coffee Roasters), apparently found inspiration from the packaging for these glasses. Thus the Gibraltar was born out of a combination of happenstance and an inside joke. Except now the joke has gone global.
Sarsaparilla — in a dirty glass
We chalk up the rise of the Gibraltar as one of coffee’s more pointless creations — an artifact of America’s milk-engorged bastardization of the standard cappuccino.
Why? Because the 4.5-oz Gibraltar glass is redundant with the regulation 4.75-oz ceramic cappuccino cup. (James obviously knew this when he started his experiments.) Both are sufficient for containing the 150-ml Italian regulation cappuccino. Except that the ceramic cup is explicitly designed with thermal and aesthetic properties for consuming a cappuccino.
The problem is that few people in America have experienced a true, regulation cappuccino. As illustrated in the photos below — comparing a medium cappuccino from Peet’s Coffee & Tea with a 4.75-oz regulation Intelligentsia-branded cappuccino cup — Americans drown their cappuccino in so much milk that the typical cappuccino technically qualifies as a caffè latte (latte being Italian for “milk”).
When preciousness is valued more than quality
So when a local food & fashion magazine such as 7×7 says that the Gibraltar is a “MUST ORDER” at Blue Bottle Cafe, and that it ranks #28 on the “100 Things to Try Before You Die”, this is basically shorthand for, “We’ve never had a properly made regulation cappuccino in our lives, so we’re willing to worship it in a cheap restaurant supply glass.”
It’s things like this that make it easy to be cynical about consumer behavior, particularly among self-described foodies. We would dismiss this misplaced (and misinformed) obsession with the Gibraltar as just a lone opinion in 7×7 magazine, but we personally know too many knowledgeable people working professionally in the quality food business who also contribute to the Gibraltar’s cult-like status.
Where’s the harm in that, you say? We’ve long lamented that genius chefs are often coffee fools, but many of these food writers and bloggers serve the role of influencers and arbiters of taste. Trouble arises when they spend more energy trying to be precious than focusing on quality.
The trap of this preciousness is the illusion of exclusivity. This makes the Gibraltar a cousin of what we’ve previously called the Malaysian street food experience: cafés that serve espresso out of the alleyways of heroin deals, stripping themselves of all customer amenities, to fabricate an image of exclusivity. The Gibraltar grew out of behind-the-scenes experimentation carried out in a Hayes Valley alleyway, and to this day the Gibraltar has never been featured on a Blue Bottle coffee menu — even though Blue Bottle’s espresso machines sport stacks of Gibraltar glasses in anticipation of the inevitable orders. (Mr. Freeman doesn’t receive enough credit for his clever marketing savvy, even if the cult of the Gibraltar was far from his intentions.)
So instead of encouraging people to enjoy a proper espresso drink served in a proper cup, this desire for the illusion of exclusivity ends up proliferating ignorance (about the existence of the regulation cappuccino) and trumping a better sensory experience (drinking out of cappuccino cups instead of cheap restaurant supply glasses). The next thing you know, the Gibraltar — and not the regulation cappuccino — is being held up as a standard in London cafés.
In an article from London posted last month on this subject, Steve Ford put it this way:
I’ve never really talked about the Gibraltar for publication, partly because I think it was very much of a time and place – that being the Bay Area circa 2005. The fact that I’m talking about it now is mostly because I’ve given up on the original idea. There WAS something special about it back then. Now, it’s just another drink on the menu to me, and like so many cappuccinos, generally prepared poorly or just wrong. Every year people ask about it, so I can track how far the idea has gone, but the fact that it’s all the way in the UK and I have no idea how it got there is disappointing. And not to be too melodramatic, but I feel like the soul of the drink has been lost. It used to be something unique, and now it’s just another piece of fucking latte art.
There you have it: the Gibraltar as the Fool’s Cappuccino. James Freeman, always looking at the bright side, still offers Gibraltars in his cafés “off the menu” because he sees demand for it as a way of weaning people off paper cups and overly milky caffè lattes. But for some of us, the Gibraltar represents a faddish Band-Aid for how badly America screwed up the cappuccino.
UPDATE: Oct. 1, 2010
And in case you thought it was just us: 2009 World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies is Done With Lattes & Flat Whites.
49 Comments »
on 06 Apr 2009 at 4:51 pm +00:00T 1.Vanessa said …
Oh, Gosh, this is hilarious Greg!! Thank you for sharing!
)))
on 06 Apr 2009 at 6:23 pm +00:00T 2.Matth said …
Too true! Yet another “fad” in the coffee world, which is actually just a rehashing of the way its been done for a century in Italy.
I’ve never heard of the Gibraltar, and I don’t think Intelligentsia serves them in Chicago. I’m surprised their LA location has them, although the company seems to be trendier and less traditional in their West coast manifestation.
on 06 Apr 2009 at 8:44 pm +00:00T 3.mike phillips said …
I would argue that the gibraltar is actually more so a bastardization of the cortado given the way I have seen it made most. small glass, 1:1 or 1:2 ratio, the milk is steamed on the cooler side… the only real difference is that gibraltars have a very small amount of froth and cortados traditionally have none. It still functions the same though, kind of like a coffee slammer. Gibraltar drinkers usually have the drink said and done before the drink after it is finished being made where as cap drinkers linger for a bit. While i would not call them a favorite, when made well they certainly have their place.
on 07 Apr 2009 at 11:05 am +00:00T 4.Christian said …
Add one more location. It looks like they are also making the rounds in Portland. http://cleanhotdry.com/coffee/gibraltar/ It sounds like the Gibraltar will soon be the most widely drunk drink you’ve never heard of!
But all silliness aside, I think you shouldn’t overlook the joy and excitement to be had around the secret/cool factor of this drink. Even if the secretiveness of this drink is entirely artificial, it is nevertheless fun to be able to order this off-the-menu drink. And the fact is that all the people in the places just getting to try these, it’s still fun.
This isn’t to dismiss your criticism about quality and similarity to other milk drinks which are very much right on. I also don’t want to dismiss the fact that once it’s spreads far and wide enough, it ceases to be so special. Of course, it’s even more fun to have been cool way back when and now simply scoff at the fad!
on 07 Apr 2009 at 12:22 pm +00:00T 5.keith said …
I’m curious to hear about your thoughts then on the “Gibralta-cano” I’ve ordered one every once and a while when I wanted to linger over my shot just a bit longer and make more wise cracks with the blue bottle staff.
Blue Bottle also serves their shots in gibraltar glasses when they’re in a pinch for a demitasse, and a few baristas actually prefer them that way.
on 08 Apr 2009 at 9:50 am +00:00T 6.TheShot said …
When you choose cheap restaurant supply glasses over a ceramic demitasse, that’s never a choice based on quality. That’s where the whole concept fails for me. People in the coffee industry obsess over nuanced quality decisions made at every link in coffee’s supply, roasting, and preparation chain. To abandon that attention to detail at the very end with an inside joke defeats the whole purpose.
If someone, off the menu, starts serving regulation cappuccinos out of the inner cardboard tubes of toilet paper rolls, maybe that’s a fun twist on the usual paper cup. But I would hardly gush over that, call it the “must order” at the café, and say its one of the top things you must try in this city before you die. That’s absolutely foolish — a joke being perpetrated on us. The Gibraltar glass, the pauper among glassware at that, is little more than a blurred line away from that silly example.
If someone wants to order a drink “off the menu” for the clandestine fun of it, why not something with quality squarely in mind? Like a regulation cappuccino out of a real cup? Or, if that’s too boring, why not a simplified version of some barista’s competition specialty drink? Then you’re talking.
Until then, the joke is on us — and even more so on the people unaware that their ebullience for the Gibraltar betrays either a) their ignorance, or b) the shallowness of their values.
on 09 Apr 2009 at 1:38 am +00:00T 7.George said …
Greg,
I’m not sure I agree that drinking coffee out of a demitasse is the highest of quality, or even a *higher* quality for that matter.
Are you saying that if, for argument’s sake, we used a spouted portafilter and let one side pour into a gibraltar and the other into a demitasse, and then filled each one appropriately with steamed milk from the same pitcher, that the demitasse would taste better? I think one would have an extremely hard time telling a difference.
As far as I’m concerned, the only real difference in the 2 vessels is that one can keep heat longer than the other. With proper pre-warming of the cups this isn’t even an issue, not to mention the fact that it takes less than 2 minutes to finish a gibraltar anyway, so heat loss isn’t even an issue.
It’s also interesting that you brought up barista’s competition specialty drinks, because I can’t think of even one time when I have seen a signature drink served in anything but a glass cup. Most notably, the last 2 World Champions have served their drink in a glass of some sort. Even Illy, the epitome of italian espresso, has made special edition crystal espresso cups. (Illy Nudes) Sure, not glass, but not demitasse either.
I see what you are saying and you make some valid points, but to call the gibraltar the “Fool’s Cappuccino” is borderline insulting; essentially stating that anyone who drinks it is ignorant and doesn’t know what a “true” cappuccino is.
on 09 Apr 2009 at 8:22 am +00:00T 8.TheShot said …
It’s an inferior sensory experience — however you wish to qualify that.
We’ve written about the influence of a drinking vessel before. Sometimes it’s mostly psychological, and it’s sometimes not related to taste so much as other sensory elements:
http://theshot.coffeeratings.com/2008/03/coffee-cups-affect-flavor/
http://theshot.coffeeratings.com/2007/02/coffee-cups-matter/
As for signature drinks, first of all no one can really order them in cafés unfortunately. (One of the flaws in including them in barista competitions, IMO.) Second, my suspicion is that the choice of glass has everything to do with visual transparency/inspection for the judges over any other factor.
And, well, I’d definitely agree with the statement that I find the whole concept of the Gibraltar borderline insulting, if not just outright cynical. I.e.: why should the Gibraltar possess an elevated status, and greater worldwide availability, than a regulation cappuccino that’s actually made properly? I’d go beyond insulting and say that’s borderline criminal.
on 10 Apr 2009 at 6:03 pm +00:00T 9.George said …
As far as I can tell, both of those articles you linked to are referencing tests done in comparison of paper cups vs demitasse, which I don’t see as relevant.
Just a couple weeks ago you wrote about disparaging the 3rd Wave, where you say the coffee geek “ethos” needs to go so that “it will improve access to better coffee for everyone.”
So now I ask this: Regardless of what you think about the “sensory experience” (which I still think is up for debate) Is it really a big deal that the coffee is in a glass and not a demitasse? It seems to me you are doing the very thing that you despise, in a demitasse purist sort of way.
Is it really a bad thing for coffee that a magazine writes that the gibraltar is something you must have before you die? What one thing could possibly introduce more people to quality coffee than that?
I have not stopped drinking cappuccinos in favor for gibraltars, nor do I have any plans to. I personally like to drink a gibraltar if I’m standing around the bar, and if I’m going to be sitting then I’ll have a cappuccino.
I really enjoy reading your posts. They constantly challenge my current views on the coffee industry, and I love that. There is no point in reading articles that only affirm what I think – but I will have to respectfully disagree that the gibraltar is borderline criminal.
on 11 Apr 2009 at 10:16 am +00:00T 10.TheShot said …
If it isn’t obvious by now, I enjoy challenging the conventional wisdom. That can be a tiresome schtick though: always acting the contrarian. So thanks for putting up with it and humoring me.
But the Gibraltar itself isn’t borderline criminal. What’s criminal is elevating it the de facto standard over the regulation cappuccino. Because then we’re selling out to a standard that is lower by design.
There is a much greater gap between paper and a demitasse, of course. But cheap restaurant supply glasses were never even James Freeman’s intention as a standard over a demitasse: it was a cheap way for him to do a lot of experimentation.
And yes, a cheap restaurant supply glass is better than a paper cup. But it’s designed for Pepsi on the rocks and other inexpensive utilitarian needs, not espresso. Thermal properties, touch properties, shape — these all matter (to exhume that tiresome wine analogy, ask any Riedel salesman). Promoting the Gibraltar over the regulation cappuccino gets it backwards and largely for the shallow, pretentious reasons of (ironically) seeming exclusive and in-the-know.
As for our point about the coffee geek ethos, that wasn’t a rallying cry to give up on quality concerns. It was more a social statement: about a resistance to approachability and mainstream acceptance.
Today we can all turn up our noses at Starbucks with a good laugh. But the brutal truth is that none of the micro lot Cup of Excellence coffees, no Clover machines, and very little of the excellence in espresso standards would exist today if not for Starbucks creating a popularized, mainstream market to financially support and justify those additionally nuanced details and investments.
If the coffee geek ethos tries to keep today’s quality coffee advances within their own ranks of their own private, in-the-know social club, rather than reaching out for mainstream acceptance of these standards, that financially guarantees that the marketplace will never support standards better than what we’ve got today. In effect, “selling out” to the mainstream indirectly funds continued advances and improvements.
on 14 Apr 2009 at 9:29 am +00:00T 11.tony said …
the main difference between a gibraltar and a cap is temperature. the gibraltar is steamed to a cooler temp, preserving the sweetness of the milk and allowing you to drink it sooner and faster. in theory, a gibraltar-cano would allow the same.
For all the time, energy, and insults you put into this post, I’m surprised you missed this.
on 17 Apr 2009 at 5:33 pm +00:00T 12.Matthew said …
I have read the phrase “cheap restaurant glassware” too many times to ignore your fixation with this. Gibraltar glasses are comfortable and accessible. They fit in the hand and offer a more familiar drinking motion. There is something comforting about it, a joy to drink – and while I read your article, it seems like you have never come down from your pedestal to enjoy something. Too pedestrian for your tastes?
As Tony mentioned, an important difference is the temperature; they are decidedly “for here” beverages. Cooler, wetter, easier to put down it a hurry. The capp/gib comparison is apples and oranges. I’m not defending the gibraltar, but I think it is silly how you have made this out to be a controversy for the sake of, much like your 3rd wave article, a bit of masturbatory self-indulgent bitching.
My hackles raise whenever traditionalism is extolled for the sake of traditionalism. “Regulation”, “standard”, “bastardization” – talk about misplaced obsession.
on 18 Apr 2009 at 10:31 am +00:00T 13.TheShot said …
My first Gibraltar at the Linden St. Blue Bottle four years ago, served by Jamie McCormick, had zero difference in steaming temperature from a cap. I haven’t had a Gibraltar anywhere in a good three years now. Why? Because I never saw the point of ordering a second-rate experience for the same beverage. It’s the same exact reason I avoid ordering drinks out of paper cups — whether some think it’s a comforting joy or not — though my motivations to avoid paper are much stronger.
If what you’re saying is true, perhaps some baristas/shops have mutated the Gibraltar to become something else than the original — so as to justify it as more than the commercialization of a second-rate experiment. In which case, what you’re talking about is not the Gibraltar I know from when it was named. Serve whatever that mutation is out of a proper cup, and case closed.
I’ve got nothing against drinking out of glass. Oddly, many comment posters here seem to have the notion that I actually don’t like a well-made Gibraltar. Glass will always beat a paper cup in my book. But when there are better options and yet the glass is held up as a better standard for some bizarre reason, and this makes it more ubiquitous than the better alternative (independent of whether this is out of trendiness or not), this is nothing short of a negative. A sacrifice made to the public’s accessibility to better beverage standards for all the wrong reasons. That, not the Gibraltar itself, is the problem.
Here’s the scenario: some London “Third Wave” [sic] coffee shop wannabe decides to offer freshly roasted beans, trains their baristas well, and sees that the Gibraltar seems to be what all the “hip” cafés seem to offer these days. After all, magazines such as 7×7 are saying the Gibraltar is the pinnacle coffee experience. So they order boxes of Gibraltar glasses and not a single regulation cappuccino cup. I stumble out of Heathrow, groggy-eyed and desperate for a good cappuccino, and I learn they only offer Gibraltars. Not bad, but what I really wanted was something better.
If you could get your wine out of Riedel stemware instead of a Gibraltar, and yet purveyors promoting the best wine consuming experience are pushing the Gibraltar instead, that may not be “controversy” per se. But it shortchanges consumer access to a better experience. On principle, that violates everything this Web site was founded on and motivated by. Anything — whether trend, technology, habit, business model, etc. — that gets between me and my access to a better consumer experience is always held up here as something bad that needs to be overcome. To accept things that fall short of that is called “settling.”
on 26 Apr 2009 at 1:29 pm +00:00T 14.Peter G said …
Huh.
Greg, given your incessant trashing of the “wine analogy” in coffee, I wouldn’t expect you to use it yourself (your little Riedel vs. Gibraltar analogy above)…
In any case, you’ve decided to launch a tirade against the Gibraltar. Let me get this straight: you LIKE the beverage, but you’re outraged that people call it something besides “cappuccino”? And you hate the glass?
Let’s start at the beginning. Cappuccino is a fun little nickname that some Italian thought up, comparing the mixture of espresso and steam-frothed milk to the robes of a Capuchin monk, or perhaps comparing the little ring of coffee crema on the drink to the fringe of hair around the shaven monk’s head. The beverage became popular in mid-20th century Italy, and spread throughout the country. Lots of regional variations emerged (and persist today); cup sizes, amounts of espresso, texture of froth all vary regionally and from bar to bar. Lots of other little creative mixtures of coffee and milk exist throughout Italy, too. Sometimes, a coffee bar will mix espresso and milk together in a bowl or a glass instead of a cup, and give it a unique name, after a local landmark or famous person.
This is, of course, a longstanding culinary tradition; where a bar or restaurant makes a small change to a well-known dish or drink, gives it a new name, and adds it to the menu. That’s how recipes evolve over time, and that’s how language evolves. There’s always some conservative element that protests changes in language and evolutions of tradition, but these are always on the losing side of history.
Back to the Gibraltar. It’s served in a small cocktail glass (not designed for Pepsi, as you claim, but is a kind of glass called an “old fashioned” cocktail. Gibraltar is a clever name referring to its use as a “rocks glass” and for it’s durable “hard as a rock” construction. Rock of Gibraltar. Get it?) You claim that the 4.5 ounce Gibraltar is redundant with the 4.75 ounce Cappuccino cup- a claim that is confusing. Are you saying that 4.5 is the same as 4.75? Ok, I admit that argument is a bit pedantic- but here’s the other piece: where are you getting your 4.75 ounce “standard” for cappuccino? There are those who have set standards for this sort of thing: significantly the Instituto Naztionale Espresso Italiano, a well-respected Italian national effort to standardize and certify “proper” espresso and cappuccino. For cappuccino, they specify a 160ml ceramic cup, which translates to 5.4 ounces. The World Barista Championship, another logical certifying body, specifies a 5- to 6- ounce drink. (I just realized, you refer to this certification yourself- so you must know that a 4.5 ounce drink wouldn’t qualify as a cappuccino under this certification?!?)
In that light, the 4.5 ounce Gibraltar is a legitimately different drink than a Cappuccino, even from a gross volume standpoint. But there’s more. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the Gibraltar uses more espresso (“double”, in the American parlance) than the INEI-certified cappuccino. Right? Ok, these beverages are looking very different from each other….
And then there is the matter of the glass vs. ceramic cup thing. Again, serving in glass is a well-established coffee tradition all over the world, especially when milk is involved. There are a number of good reasons for this- chief among them is that the rich-looking, layered coffee drink is an attractive thing for most people to look at. Theater and presentation is part of good food (Italians say, you eat with your eyes first). All over the world, these little espresso-and-frothed-milk-in-a-glass beverages have different names. Steve Ford named his Gibraltar, and the name has stuck for that specific iteration of the drink. Cool!
So, the Gibraltar succeeds on a number of levels: it is a delicious, well-balanced, espresso-centric beverage, it occupies a beautiful little niche along the espresso-macchiato-caffe latte continuum, and is beautiful to look at. It also serves as a little secret to coffee cognoscenti, which is a nice thing. It creates a secret-handshake incentive to drink out of a non-paper cup. That’s a good thing, too.
In fact, I can’t for the life of me think of a BAD thing about this drink! Remind me again about what harm this is doing to everybody?!? Oh yeah, it distracts people from focusing on “true” classic cappuccini. So, by devoting an entire column of your blog to hating on this drink is helping how?
Peter G
on 26 Apr 2009 at 2:02 pm +00:00T 15.TheShot said …
Thanks for the thoughtful post, Peter. But to avoid putting everyone into any more of a drooling stupor over this, I’m going to be very brief. And it’s not to ignore you nor be disrespectful. But rather that the comments here have long since dwarfed the original post.
This is the issue:
Anytime you elevate and promote an inferior sensory experience over its alternative, it’s regressive.
That’s all, folks.
on 03 May 2009 at 11:52 pm +00:00T 16.Matthew said …
You have done nothing to prove that the Gibraltar is an inferior sensory experience.
on 03 May 2009 at 11:54 pm +00:00T 17.Matthew said …
You have done nothing to prove that the Gibraltar is an inferior sensory experience. You have complained about glassware and standards which are less codified than you think.
on 04 May 2009 at 9:19 am +00:00T 18.TheShot said …
We’d submit our overwhelming proof to your satisfaction, but unfortunately applying the slender-body theory requires non-linear fluid dynamics graphs — not to mention a comparison of the coefficients of thermal expansion, and resistance to thermal shock, based on the framework silicates used in glass vs. ceramics. And blog comments just aren’t the place to do that.
on 04 Jun 2009 at 10:09 am +00:00T 19.hate bender » t o n x . o r g said …
[...] like Twilight fans, coffeegeeks are notoriously easy to troll, and I guess I’m not immune. Take an ill-informed premise, add in some vague anti-hip [...]
on 17 Sep 2009 at 10:06 pm +00:00T 20.Sam said …
It reminds me of the Afrocano at Cafe Teriste.
But really its about this, it is a regulation Signature Drink and should be promoted like any drink that a Barista has created and is proud to share. The more passion and enthusiasm the customer sees in the Barista the better their experience will be. Isn’t that part of a service based industry? And won’t that serve the industry better that squabbling over what glassware we “have to” use?
on 20 Sep 2009 at 8:18 am +00:00T 21.TheShot said …
You certainly wouldn’t be the only one, but you’ve missed my point, Sam. This post was by no means an exercise in beverage vessel Nazism. Our objections were based on two things:
on 26 Sep 2009 at 3:22 pm +00:00T 22.Ted Lemon said …
I think you’re missing the point. God yes, if I could go into any espresso shop and order a cappuccino and get a “regulation cappuccino,” that would be a fabulous thing. I’d love it. But that’ll happen when pigs fly. Drowned cappuccinos are the standard in the U.S. You nor I have the power to change that, complain though we may.
These little fads are nature’s way of correcting for linguistic drift, in much the same way that the terms “caffe macchiato” and “espresso macchiato” have ascended to correct for Starbucks’ bastardization of the term “macchiato” to mean “latte marked with an easily-reproduced-yet-somewhat-appealing design in caramel on the top” instead of “espresso marked with not quite enough milk.”
Language evolves. More’s the pity.
on 28 Sep 2009 at 3:39 pm +00:00T 23.TheShot said …
Perhaps you’re right, Ted. It’s just that the thought of having to ask for a Gibraltar in a ceramic demitasse is bassackwards, to say the least.
on 12 Oct 2009 at 6:37 am +00:00T 24.Pangi said …
Hey Greg,
Thanks for that article, I found it a bit of a laugh and an interesting fill in the gap piece. I’ve starting seeing this gibraltar around the place and wondered what the buzz was.
Couple of things, first off, ever heard of a piccolo latte? It’s apparently common in NZ and Australia. From what I’ve read it’s a double shot or double ristretto with steamed milk served in a 90ml Duralex Picardie glass. My question is what do you know of the Duralex picardie cups and are they of a better standard than the gibraltars?
Second, what about a Flat White? Which, to my understanding is basically a capp. with less foam. (Double shot espresso with steamed milk in a 150ml porc. cup – usually tulip probably an aesthetic choice) Would you put this in the same field as a gibralatar?
Interested to hear your thoughts.
Pangi
on 12 Oct 2009 at 10:21 am +00:00T 25.TheShot said …
The Duralex Picardie sounds pretty much the same as the Gibraltar in concept, purpose, etc.
As for a flat white, calling it a “cappuccino” is fighting words in Australia and New Zealand. I know better than to go there.
But my understanding is that it lacks foam and is closer to a “stronger” (in coffee terms) latte served in a smaller vessel.
on 25 Jan 2011 at 10:34 pm +00:00T 26.genevieve said …
good lord, you’re a pretentious snob.
on 26 Jan 2011 at 7:40 am +00:00T 27.TheShot said …
@genevieve: As opposed to those writing for lifestyle magazines who suggest that readers order off the menu by requesting “a Gibraltar” — essentially a cappuccino in a glass?
on 30 Jan 2011 at 6:09 pm +00:00T 28.The Gilbraltar « loveespresso said …
[...] what’s the difference between that and a traditional latte? Well, let’s not get snobby about it. Firstly, there’s a naturally alluring sense of exclusivity to ordering an [...]
on 22 Feb 2011 at 8:36 pm +00:00T 29.J5 said …
http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/post/2413497549/looking-at-milk
on 22 Feb 2011 at 9:02 pm +00:00T 30.TheShot said …
@J5: Me likey.
on 22 Mar 2011 at 9:05 am +00:00T 31.Traditionalism for the sake of traditionalism « Worstofthewurst’s Weblog said …
[...] http://theshot.coffeeratings.com/2009/04/gibraltar-the-fools-cappuccino/ [...]
on 27 Mar 2011 at 5:12 am +00:00T 32.ryan brown said …
if the only argument you can hide behind at this point is, “Anytime you elevate and promote an inferior sensory experience over its alternative, it’s regressive,” where is your post slamming the latte?
on 27 Mar 2011 at 11:05 am +00:00T 33.TheShot said …
@ryan: Not to sound insulting, but: it’s because a latte.
If someone were to offer a latte in a plastic baby bottle of roughly equivalent size, put a rubber nipple on it, and then sells it off the menu as a “caffè Playtex” — with the likes of 7×7 articles telling us how sublime this invention is — I would be making precisely the same points.
on 27 Mar 2011 at 11:29 am +00:00T 34.TheShot said …
Quiz time! Here’s a coffee drink we purchased earlier this month from an SF coffee shop:
Is it sold as a:
a) Gibraltar
b) Cortado
c) Africano
d) Garoto
e) Cappuccino in a glass
No hints from the audience, please, but we can tell you that the coffee source is Blue Bottle.
on 28 Mar 2011 at 6:07 am +00:00T 35.TheShot said …
To close the loop on our above quiz, the answer could have been all five without blinking an eye. However, the specific answer in question was c) Africano.
The Blue-Bottle-supplied Jackson Place Cafe offers this concoction as an off-the-menu-ordered Africano.
You can find the Africano served at a handful of North Beach-area cafés — and even as far out as the relatively underwhelming Caffè Ida kiosk. Caffé Trieste has been offering the Africano quite literally for decades now (and on their official coffee menu) — with the origins of its name rumored to have come from the many Algerians who visited the shop and ordered it at the time of its North Beach inception.
on 13 Apr 2011 at 11:19 am +00:00T 36.MJ said …
Hmm.
I may be ignorant in the American take on espresso (although I have come to realise it is certainly different from elsewhere in the world)… but from looking at the pictures of a Gibraltar, it looks pretty much the same as what Australian cafes (hugely influenced by the Italian immigrant population from many years ago, by the way) have been serving as Cafe Lattes…. for decades. In a small glass, with a little steamed milk, absolutely NO froth.
Perfect.
I will be in SF next week. If I can choose between a Gibraltar and what American cafes usually pass off as a Cafe Latte (read: bucket of foam), I know what I’ll be choosing.
on 07 Jun 2011 at 10:55 pm +00:00T 37.Glassware Review: Villeroy and Boch Gourmet Whisk(e)y Glasses | Whisky Party said …
[...] whisk(e)y, the more you care about glass out of which you drink. There are regular rocks glass, a gibraltar glass, a snifter, or one of any number of specialty glasses. These specialty glasses are the kicker, [...]
on 24 Aug 2011 at 5:31 am +00:00T 38.Madison Eats, part 3 | Team Beers said …
[...] – and a crepe with Nutella and bananas. I had a piccolo – indistinguishable from a gibraltar or a cortado, but then what do I know – and a scone. We left caffeinated and happy, wishing [...]
on 16 Sep 2011 at 11:00 am +00:00T 39.Winona said …
I dunno what all the fuss is about. When Jamie at the Kiosk in SF asked me what I wanted, I described either a drink or what I wanted to experience, and he said, “I’ll make you a Gibraltar.” It was perfect: intense flavor and short (cortado?) enough to consume without lingering too much. It was perfect in the sense that a café au lait at Café Fanny is sublime.
The trouble for me began when trying to get relatively the same espresso cum milk experience (irrespective of container) at other than Blue Bottle. A cappuccino seemed like a dangerous thing to order, not knowing what the heck was going to appear and, yes, feeling like I was at the mercy of espresso ignoramuses. Heck, I didn’t know what a proper cappuccino was enough to hold the barista priests accountable. (Yeah, I’ve been to Italy, but the espresso was so universally great that defiling it with milk was unthinkable–or at least I can’t remember having had a cappuccino.)
So, while I enjoy knowing the mystic origins of the Gibraltar and do aspire to food mavenhood, I just can’t work up much ire about this. I adore the Gibraltars I’ve had and just wish I could repeat the experience–or even the experience of an intelligentsia-branded cappuccino–consistently, wherever I choose to down a cuppa.
on 25 Oct 2011 at 3:37 pm +00:00T 40.Colin said …
Ironically, while this article seems to try and proceed from a point of knowledge and tradition in slamming a “fad” drink, it fails on every single level because it is, frankly, ignorant of said tradition.
The Gibraltar is not a faux cappuccino. A much more accurate description would be that it’s a not-quite-cortado, a drink that my dad was drinking every morning in his neighborhood in Madrid fifty years ago out of glass.
Italy is not the end-all-be-all of coffee, the Gibraltar is not new nor is it a poor man’s cappuccino, insistence on ceramic over glass is pure snobbery, and the “intelligentsia” around here really need to broaden their horizons before assuming that they know the first thing about coffee. You clearly don’t.
on 25 Oct 2011 at 5:33 pm +00:00T 41.TheShot said …
Just because you are 39 comments and 932 days late for the party doesn’t mean you can’t don a lampshade, throw up on the couch, and wake up with the word “douchebag” written across your face in magic marker, right?
Well, we certainly don’t discriminate around here.
That said, let’s get to the grave matters at hand…
A) Not sure where yer gettin’ “Italy is the end-all-be-all of coffee”. Just because a nation has a standard for their cappuccino proportions doesn’t imply said nation is the end-all-be-all of anything. Mississippi may have state academic standards for their schools, but that doesn’t prevent their students from being invariably ranked among the most miserable mouth-breathing cretins in the nation.
But perhaps this logic of “has a standard: therefore must be the end-all-be-all” conclusion is a product of the Mississippi state school system. In which case, you have our deepest sympathies.
B) Ceramic is better than glass. Heck, just for the thermal properties alone. If you don’t believe us, good luck burning up on atmospheric re-entry while flying that glass-bottomed Space Shuttle.
C) “Not-quite-cortado”, “faux cappuccino” — who really cares? Point is that this continent lacks a milk-with-espresso standard drink that doesn’t require PADI certification and a dive belt to find the coffee in all that milk. If we had that, the Gibraltar would be rather pointless. That is, beyond its current role as double secret handshake fodder for wannabe personal shoppers.
All seriousness aside, however, next time we’ll be sure to first check in with your dad whenever we have a discussion topic requiring an authority on coffee.
on 17 Nov 2011 at 12:32 pm +00:00T 42.Colin said …
Of course, if you paid any attention to your own comment stream, you’d be aware that this article has been generating discussion straight through the summer (if sporadically). But by all means, don’t let facts get in your way. You’ve been doing a fantastic job avoiding them up until now.
on 17 Nov 2011 at 7:19 pm +00:00T 43.TheShot said …
Neo said it best…
on 18 Nov 2011 at 1:29 pm +00:00T 44.The Golden Gluttons | Food With Legs said …
[...] first Gibraltar which was described to me as halfway between a capuccino and a latte. According to this article the distinction is more controversial than that. For what it’s worth, and I’m not a [...]
on 02 Dec 2011 at 2:09 pm +00:00T 45.Jean-Luc said …
I just had a Gibraltar at Bear Pond Espresso in Tokyo last week. I stumbled across this site when I googled the term to see what the heck a Gibraltar is. I found it quite tasty.
on 07 Jan 2012 at 2:05 pm +00:00T 46.Justin said …
I know this article was written a lifetime ago, but I’d have to side with Colin in this regard. The fact is, the Gibraltar — though novel by West Coast standards — is more-or-less a cortado with a brand name slapped onto it.
In fact, an earlier commenter was right to point out that there are no “gibraltars” served on the Chicago Intelli menu, because they know better — due in part of the higher population of Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Spanish emigrants in the area.
Suffice it to say, the gibraltar has been around for a few decades, albeit in a slightly different form.
And commenter Peter did a very good job at dissecting your article, and you did a very deft job in (politely) waving him off. Granted we’re playing the name game here, but the gibraltar/cortado/piccolo latte is a stand-alone drink that deserves more respect than you’re giving it. I will concede that ceramic tastes slightly better than glass, and is better at heat retention, but a cortado feels better and less-awkwardly balanced in the hand, and in a certain way looks more aesthetically pleasing. That all falls into line with a better sensory experience. I’m not aware that anyone is “elevating” it to a higher standard, but they’re definitely talking about it. And I’d rather hear the word “gibraltar” before I hear the words “dry” or “foamy.”
…And just for the record of credibility, I’ve been professionally serving espresso for nigh on 9 years now.
on 07 Jan 2012 at 6:29 pm +00:00T 47.TheShot said …
Thanks for the thoughtful post, Justin. I suppose the sad thing is that there just isn’t a definitive Web resource about Gibraltars (which, IMHO in part, sort of underscores my point). So as old as this post is, it still draws new comments.
on 17 Jan 2012 at 8:09 pm +00:00T 48.Carol P said …
Greg, you’ve had to blow a lot of hot air and squash a lot of little minds to uphold your argument. Tell me again who’s wearing the lampshade?
on 18 Jan 2012 at 12:34 am +00:00T 49.TheShot said …
Hey, nobody ever claimed that fighting ignorance wasn’t gonna be a sisyphean effort! Even with a direct quote about the Gibraltar from Steve Ford, the guy who invented the thing.
But I am wearing a lampshade for volunteering to take this job, I swear.