Owing to a piece I wrote recently, I found myself grappling with a stupendous amount of cold-brewed coffee concentrate in the refrigerator and, not coincidentally, an equally large measure of nervous energy about three hours later. What happened in between? I played around with various ways cold brew can be put into the service of a refreshing, sparkling summer beverage—the sort of thing that’ll really put a jolt in you just around 1 or 2 PM on a sweltering summer afternoon. Or a sweltering summer morning, for that matter; there’s no reason you couldn’t wake up like this, if you wanted.
Going in a fizzy, even sweet direction helps soften some of cold brew's sharper edges, in a couple of ways. The cult of cold brew tends to be—how to say this—a little humorless, a little pedantic. You don't brew this coffee—you "extract" it. But with the following tips in mind, one can reintroduce a little fun into the process (sneak preview: cherry soda is involved). The bubbles also lighten some of the intensity of this (superconcentrated) coffee itself. So, you see, it's perfect: a coffee drink with cherry soda in it is both delicious and incapable of taking itself too seriously.
There are three levels you can go to. Stop after any one of them, or ride this thing all the way to the end (dessert).
Level one: It sparkles with effervescence
Typical cold-brew instructions call for the concentrate to be diluted with water, often at a ratio of 1:1. The most obvious intervention: Why not sparkling? You’ll have the same beverage at the end, only effervescent. Or you can also take a tip from our pals at Bon Appetit and add tonic, experimenting with whether you prefer a 1:1 dilution or a slightly sweeter 2:1. Whatever you do, a lemon peel makes an elegant garnish. (I mixed cold brew with lemon-flavored seltzer and found the citrus flavor a little too aggro. You may not!)
Level two: It pops with flavor
Two words: chocolate milk. Mix it with cold brew, top that with seltzer, and find yourself with a sort of mocha egg cream. Or, for an unholy-delicious variation, skip the seltzer in favor of a good-quality cherry soda.
Two more words, for a thick, creamy finish: coconut milk. And three more, for a Vietnamese-iced-coffee thing: sweetened condensed milk. Add whatever milk you prefer, splash in the seltzer. Repeat as needed. (Nut milks: Why not? Some people even like coconut water with their cold brew.) Or get a bit fancier and mix your cold-brew concentrate with this cardamom simple syrup, float with seltzer, and garnish with an orange peel: Turkish coffee by way of a straight-edge mixologist.
Level three: It … floats?
Following so far? Okay. Keep doing what you're doing, but add a scoop of ice cream. This advice is widely applicable in life, of course. But here I'm talking specifically about carbonated coffee.
