COFFEE FEVER

Coffee has become something of a cultural phenomenon now. Craft roasters deliver fresh beans to your doorstep, and the narrative is punctuated with a new verbiage that includes grinds, roasts, equipment, terroir, nuances, storage etc. What they have accomplished in the non-alcoholic beverage segment is unprecedented. However, their full-of-beans enthusiasm seems to have percolated into drams as well. Commendable lieutenants of the brigade, Bira’s Malabar Stout, Greater Than’s No Sleep Gin, Segredo Aldeia’s Cafe Rum, have all highlighted the need for more such elixirs. Enter Quaffine, an Indian coffee liqueur, and our answer to the Kahluas and Tia Marias of the world.

“Indian produce is on the up, and how. However, we are yet to receive equivalent glory for our liqueurs, which have been mostly neglected. We are the 7th largest coffee-growers in the world, but there isn’t that much to show for,” says co-founder and distiller Nikhil Varma. What makes Quaffine unprecedented is its departure from its predecessors that use coffee extracts or flavourings and caramel. True to source, Chikmagalur coffee is roasted to a medium dark consistency, ground in Goa, and delicately cold brewed for a day, and then introduced to sugar and spirit, and matured further for two weeks before bottling. It makes for a brilliant drink by itself, sans the boozy jolt or cloying mouthfeel of a syrupy sticky concoction. Quaffine has elegant ethereal tones of cocoa, warm spices, earthiness, and a play of caramel touches. Think Melody meets Kismi Toffee Bar; throw it in a coffee highball, or in the world’s most relished cocktail, Espresso Martini. We preferred ours with a pinch of sea salt and orange rind. “Quaffine is just water, coffee, sugar, and spirit, that’s all; yet, there’s so much to do. We’ll be toying with single estate batches, different roast levels, several coffee types, and what not, so they will soon become a collectible”, adds Varma. Available in Goa at `1,650