Episode 24 – State of the Brewnion is a short episode where we recap some recent happenings, make some requests for call-ins and guests and discuss a couple cold brew cocktails. We’re hoping to get an episode about cold brew cocktails going soon.
Highlights & Takeaways
Call in with questions – 888.620.2739 Ext 6 – leave us a voicemail, we’ll play it on a future episode and answer your question(s)
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Cold Brew Cocktails / What’s your favorite?
- The Brian Special – 1 part Kalhua / 2 parts nitro coffee
- Wizard Mode – Rye Whiskey / Cold Brew Coffee / Vanilla Black Tea Syrup (quantities unknown)
What we mentioned on during this show
Episode 24 Transcript
Brendan Hanson: Welcome to the Drips & Draughts Podcast where we help you bring your craft to draft. From soda to beer and from coffee to Kombucha we’ll discuss making your favorite craft beverage in small or large batches and how to best serve it on draught.
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Brendan: All right welcome back to the Drips & Draughts Podcast. As always I’m Brendan Hanson and today I’ve got Cary in the studio with me. We’re doing a little bit of a filler episode here. My son was born a couple of weeks ago now, three weeks ago to be exact and things have gotten a little out of hand around here so falling behind. Short filler episode, hopefully you get something out of it but we’re hoping that we actually can get something out of it as well. We’re looking for one more guest and then we’re also looking for some more content for this show.
Today we’re going to talk about a couple of cold brew cocktails. We’re hoping to do a first show on just all sorts of cold brew cocktails. And we’re also looking to help answer you guys’ questions. Anybody, anytime you got a question call us up. Phone number (888) 620-2739 extension 6 and just leave a voicemail with your question on it. We’re hoping to make at least one episode in the future that has a bunch of listener questions. Cary and I get emails all day long where people are asking questions. I think for the next couple of weeks we should probably just send a response that says, “You know what, call this number.”
Cary: That’s right, yes.
Brendan: Ask your question there. Today is going to be a pretty short episode. Hope we don’t lose any subscribers or listeners because of that. Should be getting back on track soon. We’ve got a couple guests lined up for the next couple of weeks. Things should be getting back to normal. Things are starting to get back to normal around my house though sleep has been a-.[crosstalk]
Cary: [laughs] It will never be the same. Trust me.
Brendan: Sleep’s been at the minimum for the past few weeks now. But the little guy’s doing well, his mom’s doing well. It’s fun, man. It’s a fun process.
Cary: It’s all good.
Brendan: All right. Cold brew cocktails. I know a few episodes back I had mentioned the Brian Special. I’m going to mention it again because it deserves to be mentioned again. It’s basically just nitro coffee poured over Kahlua.
Cary: Oh yes.
Brendan: And we make these and we serve them in about three to five ounce glasses. It’s basically like a shot of Kahlua. Maybe two shots if you’re getting crazy. And you just pour nitro coffee right on top of it and it goes down. It tastes like chocolate milk.
Cary: Yes, it is. It’s a little too good and-.
Brendan: Yes, very good.
Cary: Wired and buzzed at the same time. [laughs] I mean, it’s a good drink.
Brendan: I don’t know if we’ve told the story on an episode before. I think it bears repeating. We’ve gone out. A few of us had gone out. We came back to my house and one of my friends Brian asked if I had any coffee or any drinks that he might like. Any beers in my Kaiser?
Cary: Not a big beer drinker so much right? He’s more of coffee guy, yes.
Brendan: Not a big drinker in general. Doesn’t like alcohol for the most part. And I said, “You know what, I’ve got this little mixture of a cocktail I made and it was super good you need to try it.” I went out to the garage and poured him one, brought it back in and he goes, “Oh my gosh. This is amazing”. The other, I think it was three or four, guys at the house said, “I want to try one of those too. Make me one of those.” I don’t know three, four, five of these later- I only had one as did most of the people but my brother-in-law and Brian himself had probably three to five of these things.
And the next day around 5PM I get a text from Brian saying, “Dude, I couldn’t go to bed. I was up until 5 AM and I was just absolutely wired.” And I think like 30 minutes later, I get a text from the brother-in-law saying the exact same thing. Just going, “Man, those Brian Specials got me. I was up and I was cleaning my garage until 3:30 in the morning.” That’s wired.
Cary: That’s what you got to have when you need to be productive at night. You got something to do? You have some of those.
Brendan: Yes, because our cold brew at that time it was just a super heavy concentrated batch and just pouring that over the top of Kahlua. Yes, absolutely did those guys in. Yes, we’re going to talk about a couple cold brew cocktails that being, I guess, the lead-off hitter: the Brian Special. If you’ve got access to nitro coffee I highly recommend it. It’s a good drink. It’s something you could sip on.
Cary: I recently had one. This was the first time I actually had experienced the cold brew cocktail. Actually, no, your Kahlua one was probably the first one. But in a bar, seeing it served. We were down in Los Angeles at a place called EightyTwo. They have all the old Nintendo or arcade games and everything’s a quarter in there. It’s just awesome. Awesome hangout, Street Fighter, all the old classic games.
Brendan: Are drinks a quarter too?
Cary: No. That’s the drawback.
Brendan: [laughs]
Cary: One of my buddies had been there quite a few times and he was all about this cocktail they call Wizard Mode. I guess they named all their cocktails after all the game type terms, but it’s rye whiskey, cold brew coffee, and vanilla black tea syrup. They put it into a cocktail shaker with some ice. Shake it all up. Pour it into a highball glass or something like that. And it almost makes it feel like a nitro coffee. It’s all frothy and good, and they garnish it with an orange. But I had a sip of that that night and, man, that was good.
Brendan: It’s got whiskey and it’s got a syrup in there. So it’s sweeter?
Cary: They sweeten it with a little bit of syrup and then, it’s a cold brew concentrate they pour in there, as well. It’s probably like a shot of the cold brew. I didn’t see the proportions. They were making them. But I would think a shot of cold brew, caught a shot of whiskey and then a little syrup to sweeten. Shake it up in the ice and serve it in a little- [crosstalk]
Brendan: Did it taste milky in your mouth? Or was it a lighter, more refreshing?
Cary: Honestly, this was probably after about 10 beers on our bachelor party.
Brendan: [laughs]
Cary: It was a bachelor party. That’s a good question. I do remember it went down smooth, though. And I do remember it was frothy and just different, unique. With the orange twist in there and the coffee. But it was good and I’ve been wanting to try to make one at home. I haven’t done it yet but just thinking of all these cold brew cocktails and the questions we were getting I was like, “Oh yes, I got to try that again.”
Brendan: Yes. We’ve mentioned that cold brew cocktail where it was– What was it? It was ice cubes. It was cold brew ice cubes with Limoncello poured over the top. That was shared with us by Brian Mitchell of the Max Restaurant Group, a few episodes back. And after that episode aired, we got a few people on Twitter sending us pictures saying, “Hey, I’m making this at home and it’s just absolutely awesome.” We’re curious to hear what cold brew cocktails you might make or what cold brew cocktails have you tried. We want to do a show on, specifically, cold brew cocktails. Hit us up on Twitter @dripsdraughts. We’d love to get some phone calls just to have some audio.
Cary: Yes, yes. Call up and record your cocktail, and let us play it on the show for everybody. It’d be great to just have a- [crosstalk]
Brendan: Plug your company.
Cary: -a mix of– Yes, there you go.
Brendan: Plug your company. We’re happy to do it. Yes, call us up 888 620 2739 extension 6. Share your cold brew recipes with us, your cold brew cocktail recipes. That number again is 888 620-BREW extension 6. We’re looking forward to sharing some more cold brew recipes. Got a lot of good guests lined up over the next probably two or three weeks here. Hope to get a few more. If you’d like to be a guest on the show, go to dripsanddraughts.com/guest and let us know. We can have a quick phone call. Get some ideas on what to discuss or talk about. We’d really like to line up some more people because not going to lie to you guys, I fell way behind, over the last few weeks.
[laughter]
Brendan: Speaking of cold brew cocktails, this Ballast Point Calm Before the Storm. We had one of these, a couple episodes back. I think it’s a golden ale mixed with cold brew.
Cary: They call it a cream ale with coffee and vanilla. It’s amazing. The flavour, if you were to drink this with your eyes closed, you would suspect darker looking ale. But it’s clean and golden. And it’s got all kinds of coffee and vanilla flavour coming forward.
Brendan: It smells like coffee and vanilla.
Cary: Yes. Yes, this is a good beer.
Brendan: Yes. Hate to cut this short but we’re low on time. We have got to get some food in us before recording another episode tonight. Again, send us some ideas. Make some phone calls to us, and let us know if you’d like to be on the show. We’re looking for guests, right now. That’s it for today. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you again next Friday.
[music]
Brendan: Real short episode there but just wanted to take a moment to say thanks for sticking with us through my transition here. Just wanted to also say thanks to all of you who have been leaving reviews on iTunes, on Stitcher and we get a lot of thank yous through email. A lot of people telling us that they love the podcast. If you haven’t left a review yet, please do so. Hop onto iTunes, hop onto Stitcher and just leave us a quick rating and review. It doesn’t take very long. As I’ve said before, it helps the show out a lot. Before we end today, I’m just going to read one of these reviews we’ve recently got on iTunes. This one, I can’t believe I’m going to say this name but this review is from My Balls Are Nice and the title is Great For Beginners. This review says, “Really great show for beginners wanting to learn about cold brewing and draft coffee. Plenty of information to help you get started making the best coffee you’ve ever had. You’ll learn more in a few exciting episodes than you will in hours of boring web searches. Check it out. You’ll be hooked right away.” Thank you for that review. I’m not going to say the user name again. But appreciate it, thanks for the five star review. Aside from that, stay tuned for some future episodes. We’ve got a couple great ones lined up.
We’re going to be joined by a coffee roaster who’s also a home brewer. I’m very interested in that episode. We’re going to be joined by Matty Wompus from Café Mulé, I’m looking forward to that episode. We’ve also got a couple of other guests lined up in the next couple of weeks here. Should be back on track for at least the next three to four weeks. And like we mentioned earlier, we are definitely looking for more guests. If you’re interested in being on the show, just hop on over to our website dripsanddraughts.com/guests and let us know that you want to be on the show. If this is one of your first times listening, maybe you haven’t checked out our e-books yet. We’ve got the Ultimate Guide to Cold Brew and Draft Coffee and we’ve got the Definitive Guide to Draft Coffee. You can get both of those by going to dripsanddraughts.com/ultimateguide or dripsanddraughts.com/definitiveguide. That’ll redirect you to download pages for each of those e-books. Alright, that’s officially going to do it for today, as always I’m Brendan Hanson, thanks for joining me today. We’ll see you again next Friday.
Mentioned in this Show
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