BY MAJA JAWORSKA
Not everyone may know this about me, but I’m a little bit of a coffee snob. Well, I guess it’s not most fair to describe myself as such, since I simply refuse to drink shit coffee. And what counts as shit coffee? – you may ask. Let’s just say there’s more bad coffee out there than there is good.
Before I started working in cocktails, I was working in coffee – I have always thought coffee was really cool. Its chemistry is beyond complex and just the whole premise of getting a seed of a random plant, processed and then heated up to 200C+ degrees to turn it into the most flavourful and complex concoction imaginable. The whole thing is actually wild. Not to mention, it is an art to brew coffee, in a way where you hit that beautiful balance between sweetness, acidity and bitterness, but there are equal parts of romanticism and science in coffee.
My last, and probably most memorable, coffee gig, was actually what got me a foot in the door to the world of cocktails. It was 2015 – the project was dreamed up by Iain Griffiths and it was called Black Lyan (you can read more about it in the Sprudge article) – it took place in White Lyan during the day – we turned the no ice, no fresh citrus cocktail bar into a coffee shop of sorts, but kicking it up a notch – we were serving coffees from different origins, also roasted in different origins, made using different brewing methods and using waters with bespoke mineral contents and composition to get the most out of every little bean. It was a beyond exciting experience for a coffee nerd like myself, who simply got to experiment and share that nerdiness with people that cared.
Truth be told, while Black Lyan showcased that normally unused spaces during the day could also be something, it was never set out to be an economical success and it was more a fun project/pop-up that lasted around a month. This is when I found myself trying to figure out what’s next, and then it so happened that I was offered a gig at White Lyan. Probably the craziest introduction to the world of cocktails that a person could have expected, but this experience definitely taught me that while drinks can be based on classics, you do not need that structure to create a balanced and delicious drink.
And this sort of leads me into coffee and cocktails – at one point, as the Grey Goose Coffee Ambassador, coffee cocktails were basically my whole job, and let me tell you – while I can easily whip up lovely and balanced coffee based drinks, I do think that ‘coffee + booze’ is probably one of the most challenging combinations out there. Why? Because there is something truly weird happening to coffee when it’s mixed with alcohol. Empirically speaking, most of the time it goes harsh, it can go metallic and all kinds of icky. Chemically speaking, caffeine (the icky bitter white powder that keeps us alert) concentration may be one of the causes. Caffeine is quite highly soluble in hot water, but not as much in cold water – this is why your cold brew coffee could contain a bit less caffeine than a hot brew. On the flip side, caffeine’s solubility in room temperature ethanol is not far off from its solubility in hot water. But, hot water coffee extraction also means you get to extract all of those wonderful volatile compounds that make coffee coffee – basically those tasting notes that serious coffee people put on their packaging. Ethanol means you get caffeine and probably not that much else, since that extraction is quite rapid. But I digress, as what we are discussing here is specifically mixing ground coffee with ethanol…
Back to coffee cocktails – they’ve always existed of course, even before they sort of went ‘mainstream’ – starting with an Irish Coffee, which I truly rate as probably one of the best coffee cocktails you can make, because you get to taste still warm coffee with its wonderful aromatics, mixed with just enough booze that if you chose right, will enhance those volatiles in coffee, and topped with a layer of cold cream for a lovely thermal contrast. The best. On the note of an Irish Coffee – not sure if you know this, but there are quite a few competitions in speciality coffee and they’re absolutely serious business. All of the coffee competitions can be considered equivalents of Diageo World Class or Patron Perfectionist. Most countries hold regional competitions with the winner getting to represent their country in a global final. Coffee competitions are nerve wracking (there are different kinds), but the most fun of the bunch is probably Coffee in Good Spirits – and if you guessed, you might have gotten it right – it’s all about mixing coffee and booze, and in one of the rounds you get to make an Irish Coffee. Please note that coffee must be made fresh on stage and the drinks as well and you get judged on technique, cleanliness and everything else in between, and you get 15 minutes for your whole presentation. I’ve done it – it was intense, somewhat fun, but oh man, I am kind of happy I never made it to the global competition, because I would have probably melted on stage.
If you thought it was weird, that we are about 800 words in and I’ve not mentioned the Espresso Martini, I guess you could be right. Don’t get me wrong – there are not many drinks out there that create as much of a chain reaction of literally everyone ordering Espresso Martinis after seeing one go out in a venue. Espresso Martini is without a doubt a modern classic – truth be told, I’ve drank, and made, way too many of them in the course of my career and, despite the common misconception, it is not my favourite drink. However, its simplicity and beauty lies in the fact that, while yes – you can absolutely upgrade your Espresso Martini by adding some deliciously and perfectly brewed espresso – it will work just as well, if sometimes not better, with instant coffee (ehem, consistency) or a classic italian espresso that’s ‘darker’ and more of a chocolatey profile versus the higher acidity speciality espressos. At the end of the day, when you add a cooled down espresso to your drink, you do not get as much of the volatiles – you get acidity and bitterness (think about the things you can taste when you’re sick and can’t smell), maybe those heavier flavour compounds, like chocolate, nutty notes etc, but definitely not any of the elaborate taste notes that you’d find in your hot espresso. To top it off, you mix it with a fair amount of sugar and a fair amount of a coffee liqueur (even a little bit more sugar), so the beauty of Espresso Martinis is that they are absolutely fucking delicious, regardless of the quality of coffee you put in it. Of course, I am not talking about extremes here and there are certainly boundaries of what that shit coffee means, but truth be told – add enough sugar to balance out an Espresso Martini and you’re good to go.
At the end of the day, all of the above is simply my opinion – coffee in cocktails is hard, but certainly doable. I do love both, but I think I’d always choose each separately – my coffee in the morning (never after 3PM since I’m old and wouldn’t sleep) and a cocktail in the evening. Each to their own though, and if you do love your Espresso Martinis, then keep rocking on!
Caffeine powder (I swear)
Irish Coffees enjoyed back when smoking inside was still legal
Coffee & Booze
BY MAJA JAWORSKA
Not everyone may know this about me, but I’m a little bit of a coffee snob. Well, I guess it’s not most fair to describe myself as such, since I simply refuse to drink shit coffee. And what counts as shit coffee? – you may ask. Let’s just say there’s more bad coffee out there than there is good.
Before I started working in cocktails, I was working in coffee – I have always thought coffee was really cool. Its chemistry is beyond complex and just the whole premise of getting a seed of a random plant, processed and then heated up to 200C+ degrees to turn it into the most flavourful and complex concoction imaginable. The whole thing is actually wild. Not to mention, it is an art to brew coffee, in a way where you hit that beautiful balance between sweetness, acidity and bitterness, but there are equal parts of romanticism and science in coffee.
My last, and probably most memorable, coffee gig, was actually what got me a foot in the door to the world of cocktails. It was 2015 – the project was dreamed up by Iain Griffiths and it was called Black Lyan (you can read more about it in the Sprudge article) – it took place in White Lyan during the day – we turned the no ice, no fresh citrus cocktail bar into a coffee shop of sorts, but kicking it up a notch – we were serving coffees from different origins, also roasted in different origins, made using different brewing methods and using waters with bespoke mineral contents and composition to get the most out of every little bean. It was a beyond exciting experience for a coffee nerd like myself, who simply got to experiment and share that nerdiness with people that cared.
Very young me, Black Lyan/White Lyan 2015
Truth be told, while Black Lyan showcased that normally unused spaces during the day could also be something, it was never set out to be an economical success and it was more a fun project/pop-up that lasted around a month. This is when I found myself trying to figure out what’s next, and then it so happened that I was offered a gig at White Lyan. Probably the craziest introduction to the world of cocktails that a person could have expected, but this experience definitely taught me that while drinks can be based on classics, you do not need that structure to create a balanced and delicious drink.
Black Lyan menu
And this sort of leads me into coffee and cocktails – at one point, as the Grey Goose Coffee Ambassador, coffee cocktails were basically my whole job, and let me tell you – while I can easily whip up lovely and balanced coffee based drinks, I do think that ‘coffee + booze’ is probably one of the most challenging combinations out there. Why? Because there is something truly weird happening to coffee when it’s mixed with alcohol. Empirically speaking, most of the time it goes harsh, it can go metallic and all kinds of icky. Chemically speaking, caffeine (the icky bitter white powder that keeps us alert) concentration may be one of the causes. Caffeine is quite highly soluble in hot water, but not as much in cold water – this is why your cold brew coffee could contain a bit less caffeine than a hot brew. On the flip side, caffeine’s solubility in room temperature ethanol is not far off from its solubility in hot water. But, hot water coffee extraction also means you get to extract all of those wonderful volatile compounds that make coffee coffee – basically those tasting notes that serious coffee people put on their packaging. Ethanol means you get caffeine and probably not that much else, since that extraction is quite rapid. But I digress, as what we are discussing here is specifically mixing ground coffee with ethanol…
Caffeine powder (I swear)
Back to coffee cocktails – they’ve always existed of course, even before they sort of went ‘mainstream’ – starting with an Irish Coffee, which I truly rate as probably one of the best coffee cocktails you can make, because you get to taste still warm coffee with its wonderful aromatics, mixed with just enough booze that if you chose right, will enhance those volatiles in coffee, and topped with a layer of cold cream for a lovely thermal contrast. The best. On the note of an Irish Coffee – not sure if you know this, but there are quite a few competitions in speciality coffee and they’re absolutely serious business. All of the coffee competitions can be considered equivalents of Diageo World Class or Patron Perfectionist. Most countries hold regional competitions with the winner getting to represent their country in a global final. Coffee competitions are nerve wracking (there are different kinds), but the most fun of the bunch is probably Coffee in Good Spirits – and if you guessed, you might have gotten it right – it’s all about mixing coffee and booze, and in one of the rounds you get to make an Irish Coffee. Please note that coffee must be made fresh on stage and the drinks as well and you get judged on technique, cleanliness and everything else in between, and you get 15 minutes for your whole presentation. I’ve done it – it was intense, somewhat fun, but oh man, I am kind of happy I never made it to the global competition, because I would have probably melted on stage.
Irish Coffees enjoyed back when smoking inside was still legal
If you thought it was weird, that we are about 800 words in and I’ve not mentioned the Espresso Martini, I guess you could be right. Don’t get me wrong – there are not many drinks out there that create as much of a chain reaction of literally everyone ordering Espresso Martinis after seeing one go out in a venue. Espresso Martini is without a doubt a modern classic – truth be told, I’ve drank, and made, way too many of them in the course of my career and, despite the common misconception, it is not my favourite drink. However, its simplicity and beauty lies in the fact that, while yes – you can absolutely upgrade your Espresso Martini by adding some deliciously and perfectly brewed espresso – it will work just as well, if sometimes not better, with instant coffee (ehem, consistency) or a classic italian espresso that’s ‘darker’ and more of a chocolatey profile versus the higher acidity speciality espressos. At the end of the day, when you add a cooled down espresso to your drink, you do not get as much of the volatiles – you get acidity and bitterness (think about the things you can taste when you’re sick and can’t smell), maybe those heavier flavour compounds, like chocolate, nutty notes etc, but definitely not any of the elaborate taste notes that you’d find in your hot espresso. To top it off, you mix it with a fair amount of sugar and a fair amount of a coffee liqueur (even a little bit more sugar), so the beauty of Espresso Martinis is that they are absolutely fucking delicious, regardless of the quality of coffee you put in it. Of course, I am not talking about extremes here and there are certainly boundaries of what that shit coffee means, but truth be told – add enough sugar to balance out an Espresso Martini and you’re good to go.
At the end of the day, all of the above is simply my opinion – coffee in cocktails is hard, but certainly doable. I do love both, but I think I’d always choose each separately – my coffee in the morning (never after 3PM since I’m old and wouldn’t sleep) and a cocktail in the evening. Each to their own though, and if you do love your Espresso Martinis, then keep rocking on!