The Flaming Moe made Moe's Tavern the most popular bar in Springfield. Homer invented it, Moe took the credit, and the money went with the credit. This Flaming Moe recipe keeps the fire and swaps the secret ingredient for things you'd put in a cocktail on purpose.
If you'd rather wear a reference than drink one, our Simpsons t-shirts are over here.
The episode
"Flaming Moe's" is Season 3, Episode 10, first aired on 21 November 1991 and written by Robert Cohen. Moe's is out of beer, and Homer offers to make a drink he invented himself.
He came up with it during one of Patty and Selma's slide nights. Desperate for a drink, he mixed the last bits from every liquor bottle in the house and grabbed the kids' cough syrup by mistake. Ash from Patty's cigarette landed in the glass and set it alight. In Homer's words: "fire made it good." He calls it "a Flaming Homer."
Moe digs a bottle of cough syrup out of the lost and found, and the drink is a hit. When a customer asks what it's called, Homer starts to answer and Moe cuts him off: "It's called a Flaming Moe."
The bar takes off. Aerosmith turn up and play. A restaurant chain offers Moe $1 million for the secret ingredient. Just before the deal closes, Homer runs into the tavern and tells the whole crowd the secret ingredient: "Nothing but plain, ordinary, over-the-counter children's cough syrup." The chain's man tears up the contract.
At the end Moe pours him one on the house, a "Flaming... Homer."
A note on the recipe
The show's version is leftover spirits plus children's cough syrup. Don't make that one.
This version gets its colour from sloe gin and blackberry liqueur, and its cough syrup note from peppermint schnapps. The overproof rum on top is only there for the flame. It burns off a little and leaves the drink underneath mostly unchanged.
Strawberry juice tastes better than grenadine. Grenadine gives a deeper colour. Your call.
Fire safety
- Use a heat-resistant glass. Thin glass can crack.
- Keep the overproof rum bottle well away from the flame.
- Keep a saucer or small plate nearby to smother the flame.
- Put the flame out completely before you drink. Never drink it lit.
- Keep it away from curtains, hair and loose sleeves.
- Light it once you've had zero drinks, not three.
If you skip the fire, the drink still works. It just won't bring Aerosmith round.
More Springfield drinks: try crab juice, or eat something with it from Krusty Burger.
