# Mazagran Source: https://dailyextraction.com/drinks/mazagran/ Last updated: 2026-10-21 > A mazagran is cold, sweetened coffee diluted with water or poured over ice, served in a tall glass. It takes its name from Mazagran, a fortress in French Algeria, and was fashionable in Paris cafés for decades. Today it survives mainly in Portugal, made with coffee, ice, sugar and lemon, sometimes with a splash of rum. ## At a glance - Chapter: Iced and blended - Served: Iced - Glass: Tall glass - Also known as: café mazagran, masagran, Portuguese iced coffee ## Ingredients - 1 cup strong black coffee (a long espresso or filter coffee) - to taste sugar - juice of 1, plus a slice lemon - a glass full ice - a splash rum (optional) ## Steps 1. **Fill a tall glass with ice**: Fill a tall glass with ice. 2. **Add sweetened coffee**: Pour over strong black coffee, a long espresso or filter coffee, sweetened to taste. 3. **Add lemon**: Squeeze in the juice of a lemon and garnish with a slice. 4. **Finish**: Add a splash of rum if you like, stir and serve. A **mazagran** is one of the oldest iced coffees with a name: **cold, sweetened coffee**, diluted with water or poured over **ice**, served in a **tall glass**. It's named after **Mazagran**, a French fortress in Algeria, and for decades it was a fixture of Paris cafés. Today it lives on mostly in **Portugal**, where it's made with coffee, ice, sugar and **lemon**, sometimes with a splash of **rum**. Barista Magazine calls it "one of the first iced coffees ever invented". Here's how to make it, and what's legend in its story. ## The short version - **Cold, sweet coffee** with water or ice, in a tall glass. - **In Portugal**: coffee, ice, sugar, lemon, maybe rum. - **Named after a fort** in French Algeria, near Mostaganem. - **Popular in Paris cafés** in the 19th century. - **The siege story is legend**: nobody knows what the soldiers drank. ## How do you make a mazagran? Barista Magazine's Portuguese-style recipe: 1. **Fill a glass with ice.** 2. **Top it with black coffee**, a long espresso or filter coffee, usually sweetened. 3. **Add the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon**, and garnish with a slice. 4. **Add a splash of rum** "if it's late in the day". The older French versions were simpler. William Ukers, in *All About Coffee* (1922), describes the mazagran as "sweetened cold coffee to which water or ice has been added", served in tall glasses, with variants of coffee syrup with seltzer or with hot water. In Paris, he writes, it was served in a tall glass "with water to dilute it to one's taste", and in the south of France it meant seltzer water and cold coffee, "what Americans might call a coffee highball". ## Where does the mazagran come from? **French Algeria.** Mazagran was a small fort near **Mostaganem**, in north-west Algeria. In February 1840, Wikipedia says, **Captain Lelièvre** and 122 men held it for several days against the forces of **Abd al-Qadir**, and the French press made it a national sensation: a copy of the fort went up on the Champs-Élysées. The drink's connection to the fort is told in several ways: | Story | Source | | --- | --- | | French colonial troops were first served coffee syrup and cold water on marches near Mazagran, and brought the idea, in tall glasses, back to their Paris cafés | Ukers, *All About Coffee* (1922) | | The besieged soldiers supposedly held out thanks to scalding coffee with sugar and brandy (*"dit-on"*, so it's said) | Wiktionnaire | | An older account quoted by Wiktionnaire: the brandy ran out, so the soldiers drank black coffee, slightly sweet and heavily diluted with water | Wiktionnaire | | Unable to cut their coffee with brandy as usual, the soldiers mixed it with cold water and lemon juice | Barista Magazine, telling it as a legend | Barista Magazine says the real origin "is lost to time", and its version, with the soldiers captured and held prisoner, doesn't match the record of a garrison that held out. Treat all of them as legend. What's clear is that *café mazagran* became fashionable in Paris: the French Wiktionary quotes 19th-century writers ordering one, and Marcel Proust in 1921 already calling it an old-fashioned drink. Wiktionnaire adds that a French manufacturer made a conical, handleless porcelain cup for it. ## Why Portugal? Barista Magazine says the mazagran eventually almost disappeared from French cafés and, "surprisingly", began to appear in Portuguese pastry shops and cafés, with a recipe reminiscent of the original. Wikipedia describes Portuguese versions with espresso, lemon, mint and rum. ## Mazagran vs other iced coffees - **[Espresso tonic](https://dailyextraction.com/drinks/espresso-tonic/):** espresso poured over iced tonic water. - **[Caffè shakerato](https://dailyextraction.com/drinks/caffe-shakerato/):** espresso shaken with ice and sugar. - **[Oliang](https://dailyextraction.com/drinks/oliang/):** Thailand's sweet black iced coffee. - **[Greek frappé](https://dailyextraction.com/drinks/greek-frappe/):** instant coffee shaken into a foam. Explore every drink in the [iced and blended chapter](https://dailyextraction.com/drinks/iced-coffees/). ## FAQs ### Where does the name mazagran come from? From Mazagran, a fortress near Mostaganem in Algeria. William Ukers, in All About Coffee (1922), says it probably took its name from the fortress, reserved to France by the Treaty of the Tafna in 1837, where French colonial troops were served coffee syrup with cold water. ### Was the mazagran invented at the siege of Mazagran? That's the legend. In 1840 a small French garrison under Captain Lelièvre held the fort against Abd al-Qadir's forces. The stories of what the soldiers drank there differ, and none can be proven. ### Why is it popular in Portugal? Barista Magazine says the mazagran almost disappeared from French cafés and then began to appear in Portuguese pastry shops and cafés, made with coffee, ice, sugar, lemon and sometimes rum. ### Is a mazagran hot or cold? Today, cold. Ukers describes sweetened cold coffee with water or ice added. But the French Wiktionary's legend says the besieged soldiers drank hot coffee with sugar and brandy, and its old definition is black coffee, sugar and brandy in a deep glass. ### Did Starbucks ever sell a mazagran? Yes, briefly. Wikipedia says Starbucks and PepsiCo developed a fizzy coffee drink called Mazagran in the mid-1990s, which was dropped after a trial in California in 1994. ## Sources - [All About Coffee (1922)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28500) - [Three unique drinks: mazagran, café de olla and Einspänner](https://www.baristamagazine.com/three-unique-drinks-mazagran-cafe-de-olla-and-einspanner/) - [Mazagran](https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/mazagran) - [Battle of Mazagran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mazagran) - [Mazagran (drink)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazagran_(drink))