I believe this might just be the first product recommendation I’ve ever done here, but trust me: if you’re a coffee junkie, it’s gonna be worth your while.

So after twenty-some-odd years of stellar service, my tired old Presto electric coffee percolator finally gave up the ghost, whereupon I retired it to a place of honor on a kitchen shelf (hey, I loved that little thing; what was I gonna do, just heartlessly throw it in the trash bin? OH, YOU CRUEL BASTID). After a cpl-three hours poring over the offerings at Amazon for a replacement, I settled on this fine Moss & Stone unit:

As I said in the 5-star review I left over at (r)Amazon, not only does this handsome red beastie brew up a flawless cup of coffee every time, it also pretties up the kitchen countertop it sits on rather nicely.

For my money, nothing tops a percolator for making good coffee. Once you’ve had it, there’s simply no going back to the swill produced by those cold-drip machines. With a perc, you want to use a coarser-ground coffee than you would in other types, which is not a problem since the Luzianne-with-chicory brand I love IS a slightly coarser grind than most other store-bought coffees. It’s relatively inexpensive, too; can’t remember now who it was, but after mentioning in passing my financially-ruinous addiction to Cafe Du Mond on this h’yar websty, someone commended Luzianne’s offering to my attention, saying it was about half the price of CDM, and smoother-tasting to boot.

Lo and behold, my mystery correspondent was perfectly correct too, on all counts. Before that, I had had to rely on buying CDM at this Asian grocery in CLT’s Little Saigon neighborhood (S& L Market #2, that would be)—much cheaper there than at the nearby Taj-ma-Teeter outlet, the only other place I’d found CDM—but they were unreliable at best when it came to keeping it in stock. The only place I know of in this area that carries Luzianne w/chicory is the Food Lion chain, which is fine by me. Never have seen it at any Wally World, anywhere, for whatever reason. But as long as FL carries it, that’s where I’ll be heading for all my coffee needs.

Understand, now, that the coffee with chicory is some damned strong stuff. Thick, dark, and rich, it makes your Folgers and Maxwell House look like the scared dishwater they are by comparison. So if really strong coffee ain’t your bag, you want to stay well away from the C w/C. Sailors, truck drivers, night watchmen in need of a good, stiff jolt of near-espresso levels of caffeine to get you through the shift? This is what you’ve been looking for all these long, somnambulent years. Which has always struck me as sorta odd, seeing as how there IS no caffeine in chicory at all.

Be all that as it may, if you’re looking to upgrade your coffee maker, or just need to replace a broke-down one, you could do one hell of a lot worse than the Moss-Stone percolator. And probably have, I’d bet.