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Permalink Reply by Troy J Mallett on April 27, 2011 at 5:40pm

Hey there, I am on Pender Island. Which place are you at?

 

I while back I did a Black Forest Latte. Belgian Chocolate with sour cherries to garnish.

 

Now we have a double double latte. It is more of a double strong, double fat latte made with 36% cream.

 

Espresso over vanilla or chocolate ice cream is also popular.

 

troy

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Eric mason on April 27, 2011 at 7:31pm

In the summer my signature drink is a iced double espresso with a splash of half and half a spash of vanilla syrup and topped with foam. Short but sweet!

Also heard of some shops doing americola. Which consists of mexican cola and a shot of espresso poured slowly over top. Never tried it but sounded coool!

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Permalink Reply by Chloé Damkoehler on April 27, 2011 at 7:32pm

A while back, we were trying to promote pour overs. We made a sign that read; "Don't be a square - try a Cup of Excellence! Single origin pour overs $3.50". We now have a regular who orders a 'cup of excellence' instead of calling it a pour over. And he is excellent!

 

I am curious as to how people go about crafting tasty signature drinks without leaning to far towards the orange-mocha-frappuccino syndrome. We're playing around with salted drinks, but I don't want to deviate too far from plain simple delicious coffees.

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Permalink Reply by Troy J Mallett on April 27, 2011 at 8:05pm

I have noticed many beverages that were made at WBC events had similar flavour combinations that are found in cuisine. Looking at books like "The Flavour Bible" or classical culinary texts could help. Similarly, books on mixing alcoholic drinks could be a step in the right direction.

I think it is important to be able to extract espresso in the best way possible to emphasize the flavour nuances  of the bean itself and then support it with complimentary flavours. Consulting the SCAA flavour wheel would be a start. Seeing that cedar, pepper and apple are notes found in coffee, highlighting them with other ingredients can be the start of a wonderful drink.

 

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Taves on April 27, 2011 at 8:13pm

I would expand more on what Troy started to say in that a really good signature or specialty drink would compliment flavors in your particular espresso. We make our own carmel sauce with split vanilla beans in the reduction. we then strain them out and use the sauce. Its a real hit. Or the other day I was playing around with a Lavender whipped Cream. add a splash of dark chocolate balsamic vinaigrette and the espresso we are using and it was pretty tasty. you would have to adapt those things to work well in a shop setting however.

 

So i suppose to recap you should make sure your espresso is profiled well, and then build off of the flavors you experience in it.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Fernandes on April 28, 2011 at 4:31pm

Agreed. The temptation to "improve" and/or "create" signature drinks are great and I feel that it's important not to get too lost in the ever evolving world of fast food style coffee. Recognizing the individual profile of a roast and developing complementary flavors to emphasize a characteristic is more the art of the craft. 

Chloé Damkoehler said:

A while back, we were trying to promote pour overs. We made a sign that read; "Don't be a square - try a Cup of Excellence! Single origin pour overs $3.50". We now have a regular who orders a 'cup of excellence' instead of calling it a pour over. And he is excellent!

 

I am curious as to how people go about crafting tasty signature drinks without leaning to far towards the orange-mocha-frappuccino syndrome. We're playing around with salted drinks, but I don't want to deviate too far from plain simple delicious coffees.

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Permalink Reply by christopher myers on April 30, 2011 at 3:51am

When you say you don't want to deviate from plain simple delicious coffees, there's a bit of a philosophical problem.  The way I see it is, do you want a Dessert type drink that is coffee based, or do you want a coffee drink?  Personally, I think the dessert espresso drink is fine, and once your in that category, just do whatever tastes good, and if you're quality oriented use fresh ingredients and home made stuff.  For instance if you want mint flavor, steam your milk with a tea ball filled with torn mint leaves.  Make your own caramel syrup, whatever.  It seems to be the case that the types of drinks made at barista competitions are not worth trying to market at a cafe because they're always overly work intensive, and the type of people who like to think of themselves as connoisseurs will always order more traditional drinks, while people who want a dessert drink will want basically something like a caramel blended drink.  But to answer your question, my favorite dessert drink is mocha with home made chocolate ganache, a few dashes of cinnemon, and a couple dashes of paprika.

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