We love our coffee-based cocktails
Outdoorsy Calgarians love their coffee-based drinks
Dry January — where drinkers give up alcohol for the month to kick-start a new year of weight loss, more rest and better overall health — is becoming a thing for some. For everyone else who’s stumbling into the coldest month after an exhausting holiday, there are caffeinated cocktails.
And no, we’re not talking about vodka and Red Bull. Instead, local bartenders are bringing back the espresso martini or adding espresso or coffee into cocktails in inventive and delicious ways.
The Icelandic Layover at Proof combines espresso with aquavit and tonic, while Teatro’s Cuban Cola mixes the bean with dark rum, Kahlua and cacao in a drink that was inspired by the flavours of Cuba (coffee, rum and chocolate).
Good Morning Vietnam (see recipe), a cocktail from Raw Bar, is a warm and boozy take on a Vietnamese coffee that combines espresso and condensed milk with Frangelico and XO Cafe Incendio, Patron’s spicy, coffee-flavoured tequila liqueur. Bar manager Franz Swinton then infuses the contents of the glass mug with cinnamon and star anise smoke and serves it with a smoked sea salt and cocoa nib biscotti (no need for dessert).
Over at Anejo, tequila is a star ingredient in the Coffee Martini, which adds pep with a little help from Joe and RumChata, a spiced rum cream. Ricardo’s Hideaway shakes up The Roasterie, a dark and delicious jolt of cold brew, blackstrap rum, Earl Grey syrup and bitters. And of course there’s The Shaft (see recipe), Calgary’s original espresso and Kahlua pick-me-up from The Living Room.
“Espresso cocktails are starting to take off again,” confirms Mat- thew Hendriks, master distiller at Park Distillery in Banff. He says the active mountain crowd likes a caffeine hit in their cocktails, but rather than cracking a Red Bull, everyone is looking to espresso and coffee, the traditional liquid stimulants.
Park’s signature drink, the Rundle Roast (see recipe), features its own espresso vodka that’s been infused with a four-bean espresso from the Banff Roasting Company. To that base Hendriks adds ChocoVine (a chocolate-red wine liqueur), honey and condensed milk for a drink that’s just as good at brunch as it is apres-ski.
Indeed, coffee’s universality means that it can be consumed at almost any time of day, even if it’s been spiked.
“It can be a drink for the hair of the dog in the morning, an afternoon pick-me-up, or an after-dinner digestif,” says James Nyugen of Royale, who invented the Cuban Cola when he was at Teatro. “The idea of being able to create a drink that can be consumed at any time of the day is a motivating factor.”
Espresso and coffee are also appealing because they’re easy to work with. Take brunch, where a mug of fresh roast tastes just as great with sweet waffles as it does with savoury eggs.
“Coffee works, especially with brown spirits. It’s in a renaissance right now,” says Lee Peppinck, bar manager at The Living Room. He credits the rise of cold brew coffee — where coarse grounds are steeped in cold water over time to extract more flavour — with jump-starting the caffeinated cocktails fad.
Coffee also works in winter, when we’re craving warmth and a buzz to get us through the darkest days. What’s more, the bean is the perfect muse for all those cream, nut and coffee liqueurs — from amaretto to Kahlua to RumChata — that are so popular during the deep freeze.
“All these ‘winter spirits’ naturally lend themselves to coffee,” says Swinton. “It’s a combination of the season and the expansion of coffee culture.”