As you might be able to tell by now, I also have a great love for coffee, and always love coffee infused anything or any excuse to add coffee flavor into a cocktail. I shared with Matthew Biancaniello that I had made a coffee infused bourbon at home (rudimentary by his standards, yes I know) and that it made an incredible Old Fashioned. He went on to give me an extraordinary tip, as he always does whenever I share with him an idea I’m having he’ll say… “That’s good… but how about this…” He went on to give me the idea of infusing Cynar (an artichoke liquor that I love paired with Bourbon) with coffee and using that along with bourbon to make a variation on a Manhattan. Delicious of course. Cynar, in its nature, is a very bitter liquor, not for everyones tastes; however, once infused with the coffee the result is OUTSTANDING! Post infusion, the essence of coffee you get on the nose is marvelous and that bitter taste typical of Cynar is a lot less abrasive. A nice way to turn someone on to the liquor.

A bottle of Cynar comes in 1 Liter, whereas your standard spirit bottle is 750ml. I kept to standard infusion proportions and only infused 750ml of the Cynar to 2 cups of whole coffee beans and let it sit for 48 hours. This is also a nice way to do it because then you have extra Cynar left over, that when I have guests over I like to have them compare the infused Cynar against its original state. They are shocked at the difference. I think there will always be a bottle of coffee infused Cynar in the home bar from here on out.