An interview with Coffee Gin: How gin and coffee come together

Gin and coffee are two of the favorite drinks of many Germans. While coffee has always had this status, gin has experienced a mad triumph among spirits in recent years. One of the advantages of gin is certainly its incredible variety of recipes. This diversity now also extends to coffee gin. Is coffee gin easy to make? Certainly not when you know that the Spirits of Kaldi team tried out 1,000 coffee blends and 800 gin recipes for their coffee gin until they had their final version. We spoke to Leon and Philicia about the history, production and flavor idea behind Coffee Gin.

You can order Coffee Gin online here

I haven't tried your coffee gin yet, so I'm completely unbiased. How do gin and coffee even go together?

The spicy and citrus notes of the gin harmonize perfectly with the full-bodied and strong coffee and chocolate aromas of our bean blend. When drinking, you first have the clear citrus and juniper notes before the espresso comes to the fore in the finish.

How did you come up with the idea of combining gin and coffee?

We had been carrying the idea of coffee gin around with us for years. After many coffee creations behind the bar, we also wanted to create a gin and tonic with a strong espresso note, but we couldn't find the perfect gin for this project. So we developed it ourselves without further ado, and the coffee roastery we work with was an indispensable blessing.

Are there any comparable coffee gins on the market?

We couldn't find anything, so we made it ourselves.

The coffee gin first has citrus and juniper notes, then a strong espresso note. A tip from the producers: coffee gin tonic

Let me ask you a clueless question: when making it, you get the gin and coffee and mix them together, right? Where does the coffee and gin come from?

We won't reveal the exact process, but pouring them together is (unfortunately) not enough. But we can reveal the following about coffee and gin: As we have a coffee roaster on the team, we were able to put together our own perfect blend of coffee using beans from South and Central America and Africa in traditional drum roasting over a long series of tests. For our gin, we focused on an orangey citrus note, which combines very well with the coffee notes, in combination with some oriental spices.

This means that you have not only developed your own gin, but also your very own coffee blend for the coffee gin. What is your background? Are you coffee and spirits connoisseurs or how did you acquire your expertise?

Our team consists of a coffee roaster and barista as well as three bartenders. Our team composition therefore allows us to draw on several very valuable pools of experience. Our coffee expert, for example, has been roasting a wide variety of beans by hand for ten years and has constantly trained himself in the process. With Ken Uhles, we have a virtuoso of the bar scene in our team, who has an almost inexhaustible knowledge of spirits. In addition, we all have a great deal of passion and attention to detail. Behind all our creations is always our own greatest ambition and the desire to create something unprecedented - and then to be able to drink it.

How, where and by whom are these wonderful ingredients blended to create the coffee gin?

We do that ourselves. It is important to us that we handle every step ourselves in order to guarantee the best possible quality.

Making a gin is not easy anyway. We know from many of our producers that they tried out well over 100 recipes before they found their final gin. I can imagine that this might be a bit more complicated for you, because you not only have to select and adjust the gin botanicals correctly, but also choose the right coffee. Am I right or did your prototypes taste good straight away?

It only took us around 1,000 coffee blends and another 800 gin trials and every single flavor bud until we finally found the final version after a year. In fact, with our third batch, we also further optimized our filtering and fine-tuned the ratio of coffee and gin.

The team behind Spirits of Kaldi consists of a coffee roaster and barista as well as 3 bartenders - so of course coffee gin is perfect for cocktails

When I first saw that Coffee Gin was citrus-oriented, I was a little surprised at first. After a while, I could imagine it. How did you come up with the idea of putting lemon, orange and lime in the foreground?

We got the idea from a slice of mandarin cake.

What is Coffee Gin good to drink with?

We like it best with a simple tonic and a slice of orange. But it's also great in cocktails, for example in a martini - a real espresso martini!

Do you already have ideas for other products under the Spirits of Kaldi brand?

Oh yes, stay tuned! We have various liqueurs and other variants of a coffee gin in the pipeline.

Got a taste for it? You can buy Coffee Gin here.