Our favourite Coffee Drinks

How are you coffee lover? Hope you are doing great.

I do drink a hot black filter coffee daily. But more often than I'd believe, I mix it up and make myself and my friends a nice coffee drink.

I want to talk about my two favourite coffee drinks.

You would find these in any cafe, but we talk about how to make it at home from a home brewer's perspective.

Remember that these are cold drinks, where ice is the common ingredient. Most homes have ice cubes in the freezer; we use that. Sadly, I am lactose intolerant, so there is no milk involved.

But I do drink it with milk sometimes. Don't hesitate to send me your recipes that involve milk.

So, it is ice, the coffee base, and some mixers.

The Base

Yes, it's coffee. And it's the most important ingredient of the drink.

If it were at a cafe, pulling an espresso shot and making the drink would be easy. But you might not have that setup at home. I don't. So I experimented and found a way.

I have a Moka Pot at home. Coffee from that is similar to an espresso. I use that.

Before owning a moka, I used to make it with a French Press or an Aeropress. 1:2 coffee-to-water ratio worked for me—one part of ground coffee beans to 2 parts of water. It needs to be this concentrated, or else it just becomes diluted. Make your regular brew with this ratio and you will be good.

Honestly, you can just mix some instant coffee in water and use that as the base. If you don't have any equipment yet, this is the way. But I don't like instant.

I like to look at the mixers in these drinks as something that compliments the complex flavors of coffee and makes the drink more enjoyable. Instant coffee has nothing other than bitterness. Once you start enjoying brewing specialty coffee, there is no going back.

After your base is ready, let it cool down and come to room temperature. You can add one ice cube and get it to cool down faster. But be careful not to dilute it too much.

Drink 1 - Cranberry Coffee

This is a great drink that is sweet, refreshing, and energizing. The cranberry juice adds good sweetness and tangy-ness to the bitter coffee.

The ratio that I like is 30ml of coffee and around 150ml of cranberry juice. You can get the cranberry juice from any nearby mart; Tropicana works well.

Take around 50g of ice in a glass and add 150ml of cranberry juice. Slowly pour coffee over a slant spoon on the floating ice cube. That's how you can create a layer of coffee on top.

Honestly, this is just aesthetics, but isn't it fun?

Here is a reference picture on how to layer coffee on top of a mixer.

One more variation you can do is to reduce the cranberry juice to 100ml and add some sparkling water or soda. It cuts off sweetness and adds freshness to the drink. ✨

Drink 2 - Espresso Tonic

Everything, except the mixer, from the above drink carries down to this drink.

Tonic water is a carbonated soft drink made with quinine. It has some unique bitterness and sourness with a sweet aftertaste. It's majorly enjoyed as a mixer with Gin. You might have heard of Gin and Tonic.

We do it with coffee now.

Initially, I didn't enjoy making this. But after switching to better tonic water like Sepoy & Co, thanks to Mehul, I love it. These are sweeter than the Schweppes ones.

The ratios are mostly the same: 30ml coffee, 120ml tonic, and about 50g ice.

Bonus

Swap the cranberry juice with orange juice, and you get yourself an Espresso Sunrise.

That's all I have. I'm curious - do you have a favorite coffee drink?

See you.

Keep on brewing!