WOW!!!  Leah, you realize that you will now be my new best friend for this!?!?  

And, I can see the major mistake I made – not enough sugar.  Not enough milk.  Had figured out that cocoa was better than chocolate syrup.  And used very strong coffee.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!       

Maybe blend up the expresso/sugar/cocoa/pectin as a concentrate, keep it in the 'frig, then add to either milk or ice cream later?  Oh, the possibilities!

Maybe using brown sugar would make this recpe into caramel?

That dark chocolate peppermint they did Christmas 2007 was beyond wonderful.  It's what got me hooked on these things, and is what let to my discovery that I can drink coffee again, after doing without it for over a decade…

Didn't see the Peppermint Twist.  I buy the bottles at Sam's, but saw a Dark Chocolate Raspberry at Krogers.  Maybe if they reduce the price on it like they did last year on the dark choc peppermint…

My funny story on that is that after years of doing without coffee, I bought a case last year to use in gift baskets.  One evening I just could not stand it and tried one.  Oh, my!  I thought I had died and gone to heaven!  And this was at room temp!!  A few days later, I tried another one.  Then started experimenting.  Evidently I have outgrown the intolerance of coffee (either regular or decaf).  I still have to watch my intake of other coffees, but whatever is in those bottles does me no harm.

Now, does anyone have any ideas what to do with approximately a zillion 9.5 oz bottles? 

So far we have supplies stored in them in the camper (like sugar, flour, dishwashing liquid, olive oil), I filled them with spice mixes in gift baskets, they are collecting spare change, but mostly waiting patienctly for a brilliant idea to form.

Finally tried this recipe.  It was VERY good!  Well, sort of, but the fault was not the recipe's!

Not sure I like the pectin in it because it made the drink sort of like a very thin milk shake.  Also, I used some evidently too old coffee from the freezer (just BEAT me Shells!) so it had a bit of a bitter twang to it that was not the fault of the recipe.  Also, I mismeasured the amount and nearly doubled the amount of coffee!  For grins, I ran a full pot of water through the grounds after making the "espresso," and the resulting coffee was STILL impossible to see through!

Am going to try it again in the next day or two with fresh coffee in the proper quantity.  That should make everything just right.

It made enough to fill 5-9.5 oz bottles, with just enough for a good taste left over.

Additional report after making several "improvements."

The problem was not the coffee at all – it was the pectin which caused the slightly sour taste!  Easy solution to this problem: leave out the pectin, unless you have that fancy, expensive stuff that does not alter the taste of that to which it has been added.  For me, it just doesn't matter, and certainly is not worth paying anything for.

Have been using powdered milk, and it turns out just fine!  (Side benefit is that this reduces the fat content, in case that is an issue.)  Also, by mixing the cocoa into the dry milk powder, you eliminate the globs of cocoa that just don't want to dissolve.  My milk box says to use 1-2/3 cup milk powder to make 5 cups of milk, so I just dump the powder into the big measuring cup, add the cocoa, then enough water to measure 5 cups.  Add the sugar and the cooled coffee.  The pour spout makes filling the bottles easy.

To clarify an earlier post, I have been doubling the recipe Leah posted to fill 5-9.5 oz bottles. 

When you make the "espresso" it makes a bit more than 1 cup.  This coffee concentrate, added to vanilla bean ice cream, produces a "milk shake" which tastes exactly like the Starbuck's ice cream!