Going by the style of recipe, the name at the end, and the font, this looks like it's from an older community cookbook. Which were popular from the 1910s to early 60s. Making 6 cups of coffee and reducing it may have been the easiest way to do this at the time it was written.

With espresso machine or cold brewing it is quite trivial to make a really strong coffee

I haven't tried this but I have misgivings, because generally boiling coffee, or extended heating has a tendency to make it taste like old truck tires.

Like a pot of drip just sitting on one of those burners to keep it warm starts tasting worse after about an hour. Can one reduce it quickly enough that this doesn't happen? Or once condensed is it just a different beast?

Maybe you could steep the coffee like tea, but I don't know if it would be as concentrated as boiling off the water

you will get a stronger end result by reduction unless you're using a $500 coffee setup. most people only have dripers, so just by adding more grounds won't make the coffee as strong as it should be.

Shits*

It'd be ridiculous because there isn't really any chance someone makes that mistake, and a whole other separate person doesn't see it and then makes the same error

Affogato plus a whole bottle of vodka (I cannot countenance the gin suggestion)

I've accidentally made Moscow mules using gin instead of vodka. It's weird but not awful. That's nearly what this recipe is. Just use espresso or espresso liqueur instead of doing all that coffee boiling.

Edit: I said Moscow Mule when I meant White Russian like 3 times in this thread. In my defense, I'm somewhat new to drinking.

With vodka it's very nearly a Moscow mule and would probably be great. IDK about the nutmeg, though.

Edit: Goddammit, I meant White Russian, not Moscow mule. :facepalm:

4 servings? No. But it will definitely serve (and then borderline over serve) 4 people no problem! That's, what, like 4 or 5 shots each or something depending on your pours?

The nice thing about it is it's sort of self limiting: it takes a long time to reduce a pot of coffee, so probably nobody is getting their stomach pumped 😬.

Is there not enough sugar in the ice cream?

It's been 10 hours, how long does it take to boil down that coffee?