After introducing iced coffee (we don't talk frappuccino's ladies and gentlemen) 6 years ago, a lot of things happened with our favourite Summer drink.
First of all very briefly the 2 best known preparation techniques for iced coffee:
- Cold Brew: this is basically an infusion with cold or room temperature water over a lot of coffee. Advantage: easy to prep. Disadvantage: less clean, flat.
- Flash Brew: this is like brewing coffee the traditional way, but over ice cubes. Advantage: cleaner, more fruity. Disadvantage: harder to find the right balance.
For drinking it black there is no discussion over what method we prefer; the Flash Brew wins hands down.
For coffee cocktails we use the cold brew at our main bar in the city center or the flash brew at our Head Quarters bar at Pakt.
Our current recipe at Pakt is 250 grams of frozen Espresso roasted Natural processed coffee (currently the Costa Rica Hacienda Sonora) brewed over 500 grams of ice cubes. We use 2 liter of 88 degrees hot water for the brew.
We stir up the brew, bottle it, store it in the fridge, so it's ready to serve the day after (and stays good in the fridge for months to come).
Currently we have 2 new great cocktails in our new bar that could inspire you guys for your next menu, or to try at home:
Black Barb: half and half mixed with Fritz Rhubarb lemonade and a pinch of salt.
Black Mate: iced coffee with Mate Fritz iced tea and half a jigger of fruit vinegar. Funky baby!
For tonic cocktails you can go everywhere, but we recommend to pick the right tonic when mixing with espresso. Very often it's bitters with bitters and the balance is gone. A more sweeter tonic could do the trick.
This could be working with either a doppio espresso or a strong iced coffee (flash or cold brew)....