The Easiest Way to Spice up a Cold Drink
For coffee lovers like me, a quality cup is always a good drink option. In the morning it’s the only choice. Winter tries to push tea into my life, but coffee is always there to right my ship. What about summer? Well, we might as well change the name to just “cold beer season.” Now that I’ve swapped out sweaters for my cold-weather wardrobe, it’s time to focus on how to update my favorite drink. My advice is to try making a drink with whole spices.
Set up cold brew materials
The truth is that the best way to make the best quality cold brew is to buy great beans. Good coffee isn’t cheap—I can’t bring myself to tell my Folgers-drinking parents how much I spend on beans—but you’ll be stunned by the difference in the quality of your cup. (I’m a Café Grumpy girl myself.) Once you’ve found beans and roasts you like, it’s time to start the overnight cold brew process.
If you’ve spent the money on good beans, buy yourself a coffee grinder. I know, I know, you can buy them pre-ground and I love it that way. However, you are about to enter a world where you can use the beans to make espresso, drip coffee, and cold brew. They all work best with different sizes of coffee. Plus, a great coffee grinder will last you for many years.
Spice up your cold brew
The whole idea behind cold brew is that it is a slow extraction process without heat. The ingredients – ground coffee and water – are stored together for 12 to 24 hours in a cool place – ideally in the refrigerator. The resulting chilled drink has a smoother texture, less acidity and bitter notes. Since your coffee grounds sit there, infusing the liquid with their aroma, now is the time to do the same for other things like that. In particular, pieces of additional and aromatic spices.
1. Prepare a container for brewing
Brewing cold brew coffee in the fridge overnight requires some sort of container machine, but I just use a regular French press to get the job done – it has a reusable filter and plunger and makes my life easier. (You can also use a nut milk bag in a pitcher or container designed for the job .)
2. Grind the coffee
Set the grinder to coarse or medium. You’ll have to filter out the pieces at the end, which is much harder to do if there are small particles floating around. Grind as much coffee as you need and add it to a filter, bag or French press.
3. Add water and spices.
Add as much cold water as you need to make a cold drink. Now comes the fun part: add the whole spices. Depending on the size of your batch and how much you like the concentrate (do you add milk, too?), you may prefer quite a lot of it—four cinnamon sticks and a tablespoon of cloves, for example—or a smaller amount. When you dilute it later, the flavor will mellow out significantly. Stir the mixture or dip it lightly to combine everything. Cover with a lid and place in the refrigerator to set for 12–24 hours. Strain the mixture when ready and prepare it as you wish.
I have found that baking spices work well. Try whole cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, black peppercorns, or add some citrus zest. If you don’t know where to start, check the packaging. Many coffee roasters list the flavor profile on the label of a specific blend. If you see the words “floral, citrusy, silky” on the label, add a few strips of lemon zest to enhance the flavor. If you see “candied pecans and milk chocolate” then I can see cinnamon working very well.
I added star anise and cloves to the resulting medium roast, and the flavors were present and playful without overpowering the core elements of the cold brew at all. So go ahead, take your time and enjoy testing out different combinations; no need to hurry. The season for cold drinks is just beginning.