Black Russian Riff
I decided to make Kahlua and let me say, unlike my exploration into bitters, this turned out great. I mean it is really, really good.
After a week of Kahlua in my coffee, I decided to try something new with the magical elixir. My first thought was to add bourbon to my coffee. I then went with white Russian – the classic of vodka, milk and Kahlua. I wasn’t up for the dairy, so I did a riff on a Black Russian and I’m digging it. I think.
With the sweetness of my homemade Kahlua, this cocktail requires a BIG bourbon. I went with 114 proof. If you go with a higher proof, you may need to tweak the proportions upward. Back to my Kahlua. I love coffee, I drink it every day. Kahlua and bourbon aren’t bad, but they are one dimensional. I also don’t see myself drinking more than one of these a night due to the sweetness. I wanted to keep the flavor, add dimension but not sweetness and I wasn’t ready to introduce milk into the mix yet. So, I went to bitters. I started with a coffee bitter, and it didn’t add anything to the cocktail. It wasn’t terrible; but it wasn’t awesome either. The coffee bitters cut down on the sweetness; but again, it lacked depth. I grabbed a bottle of orange bitters and used two dashes in my cocktail. It blended well and added a hint of something that rounds out the cocktail and they’re pleasant on the nose. One drop didn’t do much for my taste, three drops were too many - 2 is the magic number.
This is good, not great. I need to tinker with it. I could and did, drink more than 1 but I’m not shouting from the rooftops about this one. Give me time, I need to step away and come back.
I’m always open to suggestions, got any to amp this up? Stay tuned for 2.0.
Cheers,
~Kimberly Elise
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