Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish, made of a sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, mixed with oats and spices. It’s known for being simmered in a sheep’s stomach, but I didn’t have one handy, so I had to settle for tupperware and a microwave.

You can read about my experience with the haggis itself over on my other blog: Food Review: Haggis in a Can. But this is a coffee blog, so you can probably see where this is going.

I put the microwaved haggis into a cup, then added coffee and sealed it. I let it soak for over 48 hours, to make sure the spicy meaty taste had time to infuse into the coffee.

When I took it out of the fridge and opened it, the smell was not entirely pleasant. I still had to give it a chance, though. I set up an apparatus to filter out the chunks, leaving only pure black haggis-flavoured coffee. Or at least that was the plan.

I ran into a problem. The meat had made the coffee oily and thick; so much so that it refused to drip through my coffee filter. I had to carefully squeeze the filter, coaxing it out the bottom a squirt at a time, not unlike milking a cow. I did this twice, to make sure no chunks remained. It was a slow process, and yielded only a tiny amount of thickened coffee.

Ah well, it’s enough to get a sense of the taste. Bottoms up.

Oh, no. This is not good. Salt is the first taste that hits my mouth, but then the unmistakable taste of mashed up sheep heart, liver, and lungs hits me. It’s a dark, bitter, lingering taste, made even more unpalatable by the coffee.

Oh Christ. This is like drinking the vomit of someone who just won a gravy-chugging contest.

I got some on my fingers and the smell won’t go away. Oh God. I keep washing them. I keep washing my mouth out. It’s still there. Will this be with me forever?

Oh Jesus.

Do not want.

At least I also got this in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

It’s much better. All the taste of Scotland, without feeling like you need to induce vomiting just so there is a more pleasant taste in your mouth.

Oh yeah, obligatory sink shot:

Sorry.

But first let’s look back to the Coffee Hack we hosted in February. It was a resounding success, with all sorts of adventurous people showing up, many with their own ingredients to try in combination with coffee.

We had all the coffee hardware you could dream of.

Including a beer infuser, which sorta maybe almost worked. It’s at least good in theory; Mill Street’s Coffee Porter is one of my favourite beers.

Labels were important. Participants created coffees that were everything from sweet to spicy to savoury.

Unusual brewing methods were as abundant as unusual ingredients. Co-organizer Laura tried out some delicious flavoured cold brew coffee. Other co-organizer Andrew “Twitch” Berdan handled the Turkish coffee. He also brought some home-made ingredients, like this from-scratch cottage cheese:

It didn’t look appetizing, but the cheese didn’t affect the taste of the coffee much, so I’d say it’s neither recommended nor a disgusting failure.

My main contribution stemmed from the idea that traditional Thanksgiving foods—turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pie—all go well together, and leave you feeling warm and satisfied, but also sleepy. How can we possibly have all the goodness of Thanksgiving without the sleepiness?

Coffee. The answer is coffee.

(The following pictures are courtesy of Jody “3oh6″ Bailey; more pics here)

Step 1: Brew coffee with low salt chicken broth in the water.

Step 2: Add gravy powder and instant mashed potato mix.

Step 3: Add cream and sugar. Top with whipped cream. Garnish with more gravy powder.

Step 4: Top with cranberry stuffing biscotti. This was another of Twitch’s creations, and was delicious on its own and dipped in coffee.

The Thanksgiving coffee itself, oh man, I was not expecting it to actually taste good, but it was like a family holiday in my mouth. Just a bit of each ingredient made sure nothing was overpowering (like the downfall of many of my creations, saltiness). I quickly gave thanks to every known deity for leading this liquid comfort into my belly. Thanksgiving coffee is worth trying.

Bottoms up to a successful Coffee Hack. Let’s do this again sometime.

Here is how those plans got derailed.

Assplosion was a lovely gift from my family. It’s not a great hot sauce; it’s spicy enough, but hadn’t really lived up to its name. Still, I had to try it first, to start this series with a “bang.”

The only coffee I had ready was chocolate-hazelnut flavoured. And you know how chocolate with chili in it is all the rage these days? I thought I’d enhance the chocolate with some Fry’s cocoa and go for that idea in drink form.

I’ve been watching Dexter a lot lately, which makes red drips remind me of blood. That was probably the first sign this wouldn’t turn out well.

When it was all mixed up, the smell was … alarming. It literally hurt my nose a bit, with the combination of bitter cocoa and noxious spice. Ah, but I had to try tasting it anyway. For you, dear reader. All for you.

All I could taste was the Assplosion. I only put a few drops in, but it overwhelmed the coffee, hazelnut, and chocolate such that all they did was add some bitterness and enhance the illusion that I was drinking poison. Or ass.

I want to give other hot sauces a chance. Maybe it’d be better with regular coffee and no chocolate. Maybe there is a sauce out there that can contribute to the pleasant coffee / spice balance I experienced with curry coffee. But I can’t bring myself to try any more; not any time soon.

Plus, I’m starting to feel a rumbling down below.

But now, as hot summer days turn to cool fall nights, we’d rather have a drink that lights a fire within us rather than squelching the sun without. Can we keep the rummy minty goodness of a Mojito, but rejigger it into something toasty? How about a warm cup of Mojijoe?

First, get all your ingredients:

I started with the sugar (2ish tbsp), mint (4-5 leaves), and just a squirt of lemon juice. I didn’t have a muddler handy, so I used the back of a spoon to mash it together just enough to bruise the tasty oils out of the mint leaves.

I added the rum (1.5 oz) next, then stirred and mashed a bit more. I used dark rum rather than the usual white; I thought it would compliment the coffee better.

Then the coffee. Then stir.

But um, I wouldn’t recommend the fancy glass. Oww, poor fingers. I guess mugs have handles for a reason. Also, the mint leaves kinda get in the way. So you may want to use one of these deals:

After all that, how’s it taste? Good! With the rum and mint, it’s very reminiscent of a crème de menthe-based dessert coffee, except the fresh mint has a more authentic taste and smell. It’s very rich; a whole mug may be too much. However, just a few sips were enough to have the intended warmth-in-the-belly effect.

The Mojijoe is going in the success category.

I still had some bread cheese left. I’d heard it’s good with brown sugar and cinnamon baked on. I had the brilliant idea of topping coffee with a layer of the cheese, topping that with cinnamon and sugar, broiling it in the oven, then having a lovely crust to sip the coffee through, giving it just a hint of the cheesey brilliance before finishing it off with a soon.

I soon realized that there was not a large enough slice of cheese left to cover the whole ramekin (yes that’s a real word; look it up), and it wouldn’t be much of a “crust” if it immediately sank to the bottom. Thus, I drafted up and implemented a complex cheese apparatus, with smaller bits of cheese acting as supports to keep the larger slice aloft.

Of course, now is when this cheese finally decides to get its melt on. It immediately collapsed to the bottom of the coffee.

Regardless of its structure, it smelled delicious. But, well, you put anything with cinnamon in an oven, and it’s going to smell great. Luckily, this lived up to its smell. I had to use a spoon, treating it more like soup than coffee, but oh what gooey goodness.

This reminded me a lot of French Onion soup, in texture and even in taste; it’s a bit less salty, more sweet, but it’s got that delightful soggy melted cheese flavour that the French refer to as merde fondu dans ma bouche.¹

People with less adventurous pallets would probably be turned off by this unusual combination of flavours. But when you think about it, coffee, cheese, and cinnamon all have an earthy quality to them. In fact, next time I do this, I’ll leave out the sugar and add some cognac, further emphasizing that this works better as a soup than a dessert coffee.

All of these bread cheese experiments have been successful. I give it my serious recommendation. If juustoleipa isn’t available where you live (as it isn’t here), I’m sure other cheeses could be substituted. Swiss, Gruyere or emmenthal could have similar results. And as we saw, cheddar has its place in coffee.

Thanks again to Monica Wright for the bread cheese and continual awesomeness. And thanks to you, Internet, for your incoming suggestions. Got more? Got enough for a whole other week of coffee experiments? Send them in.

¹ No they don’t.

Her suggestion? Smoked paprika coffee, sweetened with maple syrup.

This is no regular paprika. The smokiness hit my nose as soon as I opened it, and trying a bit on my tongue, it was quite spicy.

I put just a bit in the grounds; maybe half a teaspoon or less¹.

I mixed it up a bit, then brewed the coffee. I took a few sips of the coffee black. It was quite good; the smokiness definitely came through and went well with coffee’s natural earthy flavour. The spice was also prominent, coming across like a milder version of my successful Curry Coffee.

But I wanted to take all of V’s advice, in addition to taking the spicy coffee idea in a new direction. So out came the maple syrup.

The real stuff, obvi.

I put about two tablespoons of syrup, along with some cream ². Then, to top it off and make it look fancy-like, some whipped cream and another pinch of paprika.

Well now, this is not bad at all. Having the paprika right on top made the smokiness really hit my nose as I sipped. The maple syrup is subtle, but it sweetens without detracting from the drink’s earthy theme. With the other flavours competing for attention, the spice comes through mostly as an aftertaste, providing an unusual little kick.

I’ll definitely try variations on this again. Apparently there is a sweet (vs. hot) version of the smoked paprika that may go better here. I’d also add a bit more maple syrup next time. However, I’m going to label this as a big success. I’d pay good money for it in a coffee shop. Hey Starbucks: hire me.

 
 
 
Note: If you’d like to try this yourself, the smoked paprika may be hard to find. You’re probably better off searching independent / specialty food stores than grocery stores (it’s called La Chinata if you want to ask for it by name). I got it at Jill’s Table here in London Ontario.

¹ I actually freaked out and took a bit off after taking the picture. You don’t need much.

² OK, I know, it’s not a true latte without hot/steamed milk. But “double double with paprika” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

“Curry” is such a general term that no two curry recipes are alike. This is a classy culinary blog, so I didn’t want to resort to the mysterious “curry powder.” Instead, I extracted the core message of all existing recipes: curry is just taking all the spices in your cupboard and throwing them together.

For the record, that’s garlic powder, turmeric, cumin, cayenne, and paprika. About 1/4 tsp of each, on top of regular medium roast coffee grounds, brewed with about 6 cups of water. I was afraid this would clog the filter basket, but it brewed just fine.

Now, before I even sip this, I want to comment on the smell. My nose is currently telling me that my apartment is an Indian restaurant. Since I love Indian restaurants, that is a very good thing.

A bit of a film on top, but nothing to be concerned about.

No cream or sugar to mess this up. I had high hopes for a straight black spicy coffee, and I was not disappointed. Dark chocolate and chili have become a common pair lately, and the same delightful bitter / spicy combo is present here. The flavour is completely infused into the coffee; no texture problems this time, not even at the bottom.

I think I stumbled on just the right amount of spice. It’s got kick without being undrinkable. For more adventurous coffee drinkers, I highly recommend giving this a try.

In fact, I’m gonna go ahead and dub this the first official PWTIC success story.

Namaste, curry coffee.