Grada doesn’t sit in any one category on the shelves. It’s best put to work wherever you’d use coffee or coffee liqueur in a cocktail. You can also shake it over ice for one very excellent – and instant – Espresso Martini.
Here’s Grada’s Jane Ryan with everything you need to know:
Give us the elevator pitch, what makes your coffee booze different and/or special?
We use single-farm coffee that we roast and hot-extract to ensure Grada showcases the unique character of that coffee.
Who are you and what are you all about?
We’re Grada. We are a coffee and cocktail company and our brands are Grada, Stella and Home Grown (which is a range of batched local spritzes). Our team is small and between us we’ve been in hospitality a long time. Tim Varney is our coffee guy, he’s roasted for a long time and knows instinctively how he wants a coffee to translate in that process. Michael Bascetta is the other name to know; he’s our co-owner and has founded, owned and run some of the best venues in Melbourne.
Explain like we’re five, how do you make it?
We buy green coffee from an amazing producer in Brazil named Fabiano Borré whose farm is called Fazenda Progresso. Tim then roasts the coffee to extract its natural flavours of rum and raisin (which if you’re five years old, you’re probably not familiar with), butterscotch and chocolate. We then essentially put that roasted coffee in a big kettle with hot water and make coffee. Then we add a little bit of very strong Australian grain spirit to fortify and some sugar for mouthfeel. That’s it.
What excites you about this project?
Getting to improve on something. How often do you find a category out there that genuinely could do with a shake up? Coffee in cocktails has always been pretty ordinary. Who wants to drink a concentrate, or ambiguously and poorly sourced coffee? Coffee is such a cool agricultural product that bars shouldn’t treat it as one generic flavour and we’re really excited to be a part of the change.
How do I drink it?
Shake it with ice and you’ll have an Espresso Martini. Pour it neat over ice and you’ll have a great digestif. If you like Negronis, try it with Campari and a good rum.
What are the perfect conditions to enjoy Grada?
Over ice with a lemon wedge at Bistra after a beautifully cooked chicken. Shaken into an Espresso Martini at The Builders Arms. As a late-night treat in Apollo Inn’s Dulce de Leche. Listening to rock music with a slice in hand, poured straight from a nitro tap at Heartbreaker.
Is this here for a good time or a long time?
A very long time.
Where can I buy it?
In person Blackhearts & Sparrows or Morning Market. Online at grada.coffee.
grada.coffee