Born out of that pervasively ubiquitous feeling that encourages one to mutter any variant of the sentiment “f*@!k it” as well as the more practical notion of needing a pick-me-up after a particularly heavy meal, the Carajillo isn’t meant to be fussy. Some drinks you enjoy sipping on a beach, some on a Saturday evening at a cocktail bar before a show, or simply as a nightcap. The Carajillo means business. It is more of a morning shot under the foreboding environment of soon to immerse oneself in bad news or as a postprandial curative as if to politely apologize in advance to one’s digestive organs. In Catalan etymology, Carajillo stems from the word for courage, coraje, and the similar sounding phrase que ara guillo, translates to roughly “in a hurry.” In Andalucía, the expletive carajo is often shouted after partaking one. Writer Michael Snyder documents this well in his PUNCH piece. Early origins for the process of taking a bit of liquor, whether sweet, strong or both with one’s espresso are pervasive in much of coffee drinking Europe. Snyder also mentions the documented Cuban practice of sharing the drink with plantation workers to give them that same courage and energy for a hard day of labor. Clearly history has broadly accepted the now trendy practice of the Carajillo ritual in some form. In modern-day Mexico, the drink is synonymous with the sweet Licor 43 and a local working class favorite. The rum variant below is as simple as it is deliciously reviving. Try, if you can, to imagine a more able-elder-inverse-sibling to the Mind Eraser cocktail ritual.