Why Make Your Own Coffee Liqueur?
What if we told you that you could level up your homemade espresso martini, white Russian or baby Guinness. If you’ve been making these at home, or even ordering them out, it’s almost certain that you’ve been drinking Kahlua or Tia Maria. Look, we’re not going to completely out these giants; they’re giants for a reason. But if you’re reading this blog, you almost certainly have a preference on how your coffee drinks are made, and most importantly, taste.
If the actual coffee taste is not what you’re bothered about, then maybe it’s the alcohol that goes in your cocktails! Both Kahlua and Tia Maria are rum based liqueurs, and while there’s no problem with that, what if you’re a bourbon boy? What if you’re a Gin queen? What if you want to try and add a little coffee hit to your negroni? A gin-based coffee liqueur makes far more sense here. An old fashioned with a hint of coffee? It’s a whiskey cocktail, we want a whiskey-based liqueur. Maybe we’re making a tiramisu – in which case we would recommend rum, or even amoretto.
Finally, ask yourself why you make anything at home? Well, for the most part, it’s cheaper, you don’t have to leave the house and, most importantly, it’s always better and you’re in control. We’re going to spill the beans (pun intended) and give you the secret Brew Crew recipe and we suggest you follow it, but feel free to adjust the ratios to really perfect it for your taste! Do you want it sweeter? Less sweet? Boozier? More intense? Adjust your ratios, try again, now you’ve got two coffee liqueurs for two different purposes. Win-win.
How to Make Coffee Liqueur
It’s actually really simple, very low effort and super effective. Make a cold brew coffee, sweeten with a simple syrup, infuse with whatever alcohol you want, done.
We’re using cold brew because this will let the subtleties of the roasted coffee sing for longer, rather than going flat. A coarse grind is what you want here – slightly coarser than you would go for a cafetière. If you go for an espresso grind, you’re in danger of your brew over extracting and overly bitter and heavy. Let this infuse for 12 hours, strain, add a cooled simple syrup and your spirit of choice and you’re done.
There’s also a great opportunity here for you to add other aromatics or spices – many coffee liqueur recipes call for a vanilla infusion, this is of course optional, and we haven’t included it because we’re giving you a base; something you can adjust as you like. If you’re doing a gin infusion, you probably don’t want vanilla in there; some orange or grapefruit peal though? Great idea. If you’re doing whiskey or bourbon, vanilla would work fantastically, so also would cinnamon, star anise, cloves even. Any which ways, if you’re adding other infusions, add them after all the aforementioned steps, leave for a further three days and remove.
Anyway, let’s make this, shall we?
Homemade Coffee Liqueur Recipe
Ingredients:
(This will make nearly 750ml of liqueur, or a standard bottle)
For the Cold Brew: 1:5
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43g whole coffee beans (Our own Premio or De La Casa would work amazingly), coarsely ground
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215g filter water
For the sugar syrup:
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140g demerara sugar
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140g water
250ml spirit of your choice
Method:
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Grind your coffee and mix it with the water for the cold brew. Leave this in the fridge for 12 hours, strain through a coffee filter and you have your cold brew base.
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Add the sugar and the water to a pan, bring to a boil, make sure all of the sugar is dissolved and turn off the heat. Allow to cool completely and combine with your cold brew.
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Add your spirit of choice to the mixture and you’ve made a coffee liqueur!
Customising Your Coffee Liqueur:
By this point you’ve probably understood that we want you to make your own adjustments to suit your preferences, but if you need a little guidance, here’s some good tips:
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Sweeter: adjust your syrup to liquid ratio, better yet caramelise your syrup. Add just enough water to dissolve the sugar and once boiling, leave it. It will eventually start to turn golden – keep an eye on it and take it off the heat just before it’s reached the colour you desire.
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More intense/less sweet: the simplest option would be to lower the quantity of the sugar syrup and add more cold brew. You could also change your cold brew ratios; up the coffee content and lower the water content, or simply brew the original ratio for longer.
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Boozier: quite simply, take out some of the coffee mixture, and add more booze!
However you’ve done it, you’ve made your own coffee liqueur, next time you’re hosting the girls and they want an espresso martini, they’re going to think you’re a rocket scientist. Let’s brew this.