Coffee can be playful, serious, exciting, and balancing in so many different drinks. In a year where we did more in-person pop ups than ever before, we aimed to create drinks you have and haven’t seen before both with coffee and without. It was a fun challenge and distraction from the normal hustle of coffee roasting and allowed us to stretch our barista skills.
Smoking syrups has the ability to add a depth of flavor and nuance to your drinks that we have found really adds the extra touch that some drinks need. Generally the best technique is a cocktail smoker and bottle, but those are expensive, especially for small experiments. What we have found works for us, is taking two aluminum serving trays and creating a clamshell of sorts. This holds a smaller tray that you will put your syrup in, and then the outer one you can place a small pile of woodchips. Torch the woodchips and close the lid and seal with some tape. I'll repeat this process until I have the desired level of smoke flavor I want.
Whipcreams and cold foams all come from the same family. I have a love-hate relationship with cold foams on drinks. But, foams have become a great way to add an extra level of flavor on your drinks. For this, we use an ISI Cream Whipper. You can generally make foams out of all sorts of things, however, you generally need something to stabilize and hold together the foam. For whip creams, that is just the fats in the cream. For vegan or non dairy foams, you have to turn to using agar, versawhip, or xantham gum. I still have a lot of experimenting I need to do with the whipper to figure out what amount of stabilizers I want in certain things, which I am sure I will do in the upcoming year.
Clarifying drinks is something that is very very common in the batch cocktail world. Milk punches, fat washes, etc can all be found on the menu of bars all over the US. In general the idea is you are taking an acid and a milk, adding them to your drink, and as it curdles, the curds will pull out the larger solubles. When you then filter the curds out, all that is left is a clearer form of the original drink, with a creaminess and roundness added by the milk washing. In the cocktail world, this produces these beautiful transparent cocktails. In the coffee world, not so much. Coffee can not be clarified like that. In general, color that is imparted by caramelization/maillard, most likely isn't going away. I also have found that using coconut cream, in an attempt to be vegan friendly, does not clarify the same way as whole milk, because the coconut oil makes it hazy at cold temperatures. As for acids, experiment with different ways to acidify your drink to make it curdle, be prepared the acid does stay in your drink profile, so you should be doing it with drink recipes that already have some acid. I used lactic acid and citric acid (lime juice) the most. Lactic acid is fun and adds a bit of yogurt-y profile to the drink.