MILAN – Although both Jack Daniel’s and Starbucks have launched their own whiskey-flavored coffee products over the last few months, they – for better or worse – actually don’t contain any alcohol.
A new “hard” cold brew coffee, however, packs a dangerously good-sounding double threat: all the caffeine you’d expect from coffee and slightly more alcohol than a beer. For real.
It’s fittingly dubbed Bad Larry’s and cans of the stuff are set to start hitting store shelves sometime this May, making it the first brand of prepackaged boozy cold brew coffee to be available in the US, according to a report by Draft magazine.
Basically, it’s the inevitable – and yet surprisingly novel – new alcoholic beverage, following the rise of drinks like hard ciders, hard sodas, and hard seltzers in recent years
Bad Larry’s was created by a Minnesota-based team: owner “Bad” Larry Abernathy, Blackeye Roasting Co. Founder Matt McGinn, and co-inventor Matty O’Reilly.
They make it by blending Blackeye’s cold-press coffee, cane sugar, and malt, then adding gasses like nitrogen for a smooth mouth feel.
Each resulting can contains 180mg of caffeine (about what you’d get in a cup of coffee) and 6% ABV. In an interview with City Pages, McGinn claims the caffeine-alcohol combo is totally legal, too.
Bad Larry’s will arrive in stores this May, but only in Minnesota and Wisconsin at first, according to the report.
The company hopes to unleash packs of the beverage elsewhere with a wider release sometime after that.
“I can see people drinking this with brunch or lunch, when you want a coffee but you also want a beer or wine or something,” O’Reilly told Draft magazine. “And I really see this opportunity to replace a vodka-Red Bull at 9 p.m.”
But, really, is there a wrong time of day to turn up with a spiked coffee drink? Didn’t think so.
Tony Merevick
