Crafthouse Cocktails Partners with Dark Matter Coffee to Create a RTD Coffee Old Fashioned

Crafthouse Cocktails is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a special limited release Coffee Old Fashioned, available April 3rd via ReserveBar and in select Illinois retailers. The launch is a partnership with Chicago’s Dark Matter Coffee, which is supplying the Guatemalan ‘Catuai’ coffee varietal, and Michigan’s Traverse City Whiskey Co., which is producing the bespoke whiskey blend. Custom bitters round out the cocktail for a take on an Old Fashioned.

The Coffee Old Fashioned offers flavor notes of cacao, freshly roasted coffee, baking spice and citrus:

• The Coffee
  • The honey-processed ‘Catuai’ coffee cultivar from Dark Matter is sourced from the San Jeronimo Miramar in Guatemala. The honey process begins with ripe coffee cherries picked and transported to the mill, then pulped using a dry-pulper to ensure that only the skin of the cherry is removed, keeping as much sugary mucilage as possible on the bean. This allows for some fermentation and also leaves residual sugars from the pulp in the fruit, producing a sweet, juicy cup of coffee with flavor notes of strawberry, dark chocolate and brown sugar. 
• The Whiskey
  • Traverse City Whiskey Co. contributed a blend of straight bourbons with two high-rye mash bills ranging from two to five years of age. It has a spicy nose with hints of clove, cedar, and cumin over a base of warm oak. The palate is cool and lightly grassy transitioning to a full, rounded body that has both cane sugar sweetness with hints of citrus, followed by a nutty finish that complements the coffee. The team hand-picked over a dozen single barrels for the batch.
• The Bitters
  • Custom made for the Coffee Old Fashioned, the bitters feature a blend of citrus peel, baking spices and cacao sourced from Sleep Walk Chocolate that bind everything together.

"The Old Fashioned is truly the granddaddy of all cocktails,” says Crafthouse Cocktails Co-Founder, Charles Joly. “Our Coffee Old Fashioned reflects our vision for the perfect version of this venerable drink, with a signature twist of course.”

“We’ve known the folks at Dark Matter Coffee and Traverse City Whiskey Co. for over 15 years,” added Crafthouse Co-Founder Matt Lindner. “It’s exciting to partner with them on a release that will appeal to everyone from cocktail lovers to coffee drinkers.”