At Coffee Labs, we believe the world is our community. The farmers and growers we work with around the world seem just as close to us as our wholesale clients and coffee shop customers. Therefore when the opportunities arose for us to be able to work with other craft food and beverage makers in the area, we were happy to begin doing so. As many of you may be aware, we have been working with Taconic Distillery, Peekskill Brewery, and Alice Corporation’s Mount Fuji Mochi Ice over the past several months and years. We started with Peekskill around three years ago, and have only recently discovered the potential working with Taconic distillery and Mochi Ice. We work with companies like this because we believe they share our values when it comes to delivering a high quality product, and so far, we have been very happy with the results. And lets be honest, everything tastes better with a little coffee in it! Our work with Taconic Distillery started when we were contacted by Matt Frohman, one of the distillers there. He said he had a white oak barrel that had recently been emptied, and he wanted to see how we could work together to create something new by aging some green, unroasted coffee in the barrel. By doing this, we could infuse the coffee with the flavor of the rum and rye that the barrel had previously been used for. In turn, the barrel could be used again by the distillery to make a new single barrel whiskey infused with the flavor in the coffee. It's all a bit of an experiment.
The barrel had had quite a life already. Again, it was made from white oak, and charred on the inside by, according to Matt to “the color of a toasted marshmallow”. Charring to this level allows the sugars in the wood to come out. The distillery first used the barrel to age a batch of their rye, and then after that to finish off the aging process of their rum. Side note, both of those spirits are absolutely amazing we highly recommend trying them. You can find them by clicking
here. After these two distilling processes the barrel got to us. Honestly we’re not that sure what will happen when the coffee comes out of the barrel in a few months, but we’ll have something by March! Coffee Labs has been working with Peekskill Brewery much longer than with Taconic distillery, so our collaborations have yielded some more concrete (and delicious) results. Matt Levy, Peekskill’s head brewer has a style of brewing coffee beer that some might not expect. Instead of making stouts and porters, he makes comparatively lighter pale ales with strong coffee flavors, resulting in a very nice, unique product
. For example, one of the beers we've collaborated with Peekskill on is appropriately called “Wake up call”, pictured below. Notice how it isn’t black or brown like most other coffee beers you might find. This is because the coffee is infused rather than brewed directly in the beer itself. This allows a strong coffee flavor to come out in the beer without overpowering its natural flavor profile.
Wake up call was brewed with Colombia Villa Glady’s coffee, one of the most flavorful and complex coffees we offer. This beer compliments it in a great way. It will be available again at Peekskill Brewery in the next few weeks. We just got a shipment of Villa Glady’s in a few weeks ago, and the brewing process is underway according to Matt. Also look out for “Order 66” and “Jedi Mind Tricks” collaborative beers from Peekskill Brewery, either on tap now or coming soon. Check out some of their other brew's by visiting them at
Keep an eye out for collaboration with Alice Corportation and their Mt. Fuju mochi ice cream in the coming months as well. They’re a company we are working with to make a coffee flavored variety of their already amazing mochi style ice cream. Alice Corporation has been making mochi for decades, and what started out as making this exotic treat for friends and neighbors has turned into a great company Coffee Labs is proud to work with.
We are always trying to be better here at coffee labs, and working with these great local organizations to bring great products to the Hudson valley market has been and will continue to be a great experience for us and everyone involved.
