The Black Russian was featured in the film The Big Lebowski (1998). In the film, the character Jeffrey "The Dude" Leboswki orders a White Russian, but is mistakenly served a Black Russian.

Coffee liqueur and vodka are mixed together to create the Black Russian cocktail. It is thought that Gustave Tops, a Belgian bartender invented it in 1949 at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels in honour of Perle Mesta, the United States ambassador to Luxembourg at the time. It has been called "one of the classic cocktails of the mid-Twentieth Century" and rose to popularity in the 1950's and 1960's.