Homemade Coffee Syrup Recipe for Coffee Milk (2024)

By Robin Gagnon | Updated on 09/13/2022

If you have never heard of Coffee Milk before, you have never lived in Rhode Island. It is simply coffee syrup mixed into milk, much like a chocolate milk... only cooler. Coffee milk is such an iconic beverage around here that we went ahead and made it the official state drink back in 1993. Today I have a homemade coffee syrup recipe to share with you, so your family can enjoy it as well.

This post brought to you by Folgers. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Mom Foodie.

Rhode Island & Coffee Milk

Growing up, we had three types of milk to choose from at school; regular white, chocolate and coffee milk. It never occurred to me that children in most of the country didn't have that last option. We even had some fierce completion between favorite brands of coffee syrup back then. Like many other products, eventually the sugar used in the syrup was replaced with HFCS, so I started making it myself in small batches for use in our home.

Homemade Coffee Syrup

Coffee syrup is a simple syrup of sugar and strong coffee. There are various ways it can be made, but my favorite (and the easiest) is to make it with a good qualityInstant Coffee, such as Folgers. It takes out the guessing if your coffee is strong enough. I've included my own easy recipe for the syrup below, as well as a pdf, so you can print simple labels for your bottles/jars.

Other Uses for Coffee Syrup

Although coffee syrup is most commonly used to make simple coffee milk, blending in a little ice cream makes a nice Frappe (Milkshake to most of you). It can also be used as a topping for ice cream, added to grilling sauces for a bit of kick or even as a non-alcoholic stand-in for coffee liqueur in desserts and virgin drinks.

Coffee Syrup Recipe: Visual Walkthrough

Here is a quick visual walk through of the process of making your own syrup for coffee milk. (Full recipe below)

Whisk the instant coffee into cold water.

Add the sugar and whisk well, then microwave on high for one minute. Stir and repeat in 20-30 second rounds until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. (likely between 2-2 ½ minutes).

Skim the top of the syrup with a spoon, cheesecloth or towel. Pour into your clean bottle/jar *If canned/bottled in a sterile manner, such as jam is made, the sealed container will have a long shelf life, otherwise I strongly suggest refrigerating. Here is a quick video of the process of making the syrup and preparing a glass of coffee milk.

Free Printable Labels

Here is the pdf file, so you can print labels if you would like. coffee milk syrup labels

... and of course the actual simple coffee syrup recipe.

DIY Coffee Lover's Gift Basket

Make your favorite coffee lover a gift basket with this homemade syrup, some of their favorite java and make an easy coffee melt and pour soap or coffee scrub. So much more interesting, than yet another mug.