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Booze-infused coffee: Cold brew cocktails to try on National Coffee Day

Autumn Whitney
awhitney@tahoedailytribune.com
The Cafe Con Chatta is made with Cutwater Fugu Horchata Vodka, Alpen Sierra cold extract nitro coffee and finished with a cinnamon sugar rim.
Autumn Whitney / Tahoe Daily Tribune |

It’s National Coffee Day on Friday, Sept. 29 — and to celebrate, try something out of the ordinary. Nitro coffee has been a trending phenomenon in recent years, but on Tahoe’s South Shore one establishment is taking it even further by mixing cold brew into cocktails.

Over in Stateline, Azul Latin Kitchen currently has two coffee cocktails on its menu: the Café Con Chatta and the Iced Irishman.

“We wanted to do a cold brew coffee [cocktail], which was something we saw at a tradeshow in Vegas,” said Nick Patch, bar supervisor at Azul Latin Kitchen. “A few local places are doing the cold brew coffee thing, and we realized we could set up a nitro line that’s Vegas-inspired.”



His favorite of the two drinks, the Café Con Chatta, is made with Cutwater Fugu Horchata Vodka, Alpen Sierra cold extract nitro coffee and finished with a cinnamon sugar rim.

“The horchata vodka, Fugu, the cool thing about it is that it’s 40 percent alcohol and flavored, which you don’t find that often. We do that with nitro cold brew on the rocks and a cinnamon sugar rim — it looks pretty,” Patch said, adding that the mixed drink pays tribute to the restaurant’s Latin menu.



The other of Azul’s coffee cocktails, the Iced Irishman, mixes Tullamore DEW Irish whiskey with Kerrygold Irish cream Liquer (similar to Baileys Irish Cream) and Alpen Sierra cold extract nitro coffee, and is topped with whipped cream.

“They’re easy to make — we had bartenders come up with a couple ideas, we tasted them and these are the couple we like.

“Having coffee on nitro does most of the work for you: Basically all it comes down to is putting ice in a glass, pouring the alcohol and coffee, and then doing the garnish,” Patch noted.

Azul partnered with local roasting company Alpen Sierra Coffee in July earlier this year, so the cocktails are a new addition to the Latin restaurant’s menu.

“Right now the specialty coffee is one of our biggest development products; there’s a lot of research and development going into it,” said Christian Waskiewicz, coffee master at Alpen Sierra.

Get out and try one of the region’s newest offerings in honor of National Coffee Day.

Azul Latin Kitchen is located at 1001 Heavenly Village Way. Learn more online at http://www.azullatinkitchen.com.


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