Another year at the London Coffee Festival, another round of inspired coffee cocktails. This massive festival—30,000+ attendees this year and counting—encourages guests to drink freely and mightily as companies hand out coffee-forward booze beverages throughout the day. And the true nexus for bibendum at the London Coffee Festival is La Marzocco‘s annual True Artisan Cafe, bringing together more than 20 coffee roasters and cafes for a series of three-hour shifts, pulling out all the stops along the way for a series of inventive signature drinks.

“True Artisan Bar was created to give our partners and customers the opportunity to spend time with consumers,” says UK La Marzocco Manager Paul Kelly. “The signature drinks and cocktails show creativity and passion that they don’t get the chance to showcase in their cafes.”

With a live DJ setting the mood, the whole atmosphere is positively club-like. We tried heaps of ace booze here, but these cheeky cocktails stood out among the rest.

Summer Is Coming – Coffee Collective

For three short hours, Copenhagen’s Coffee Collective took over the La Marzocco True Artisan Cafe at the 2018 London Coffee Festival. While there, the team pulled shots on the Modbar espresso machine and made a light, kicky coffee cocktail they call “Summer Is Coming.”

Using a light-alcohol coffee liqueur the crew created with Trolden Distillery in Kolding, Denmark, the Summer Is Coming is a bright and refreshing cocktail with a bit of orange zest, espresso, and tonic served on the rocks. Look for a spotlight feature on the liqueur collab betwixt Coffee Collective and Trolden in the coming weeks right here on Sprudge.

Coco Colada – SoHo House

While on queue, I overheard SoHo House‘s UK Coffee Quality Control Manager Coco Deeb tell a guest, “If you come back in 20 minutes, we’ll have the best coffee cocktail you’ve ever had in your life! It’s called a Coco Colada.” Naturally, I needed to know more.

The frozen drink was created by SoHo House UK Bar Manager Erden Kayalar and blends coconut, fresh pineapple juice, cocoa nibs, cold brew concentrate from UK’s own Sandows, espresso roasted for SoHo House by Origin Coffee Roasters, and Bacardi rum infused with cocoa nibs.

Diving in a bit deeper, I learned the coconut component was itself a blend of Coco Lopez cream of coconut, coconut water, coconut milk, and Angostura bitters.

It’d be near impossible to replicate this drink at home without a lot of time and a fully operable granita machine, but the kind folks at SoHo House suggest blending cold brew, Coco Lopez, pineapple juice, and Bacardi Carta Oro.

Iced Cafe Fracais – Grind

Shoreditch’s very own Grind classed up the place with bottles of Grey Goose vodka. What tastes better than an espresso martini? If that martini has a bunch of half and half in it! The Iced Cafe Fracais is a shaken cocktail of cream, vodka, espresso, and sugar.

The cocktail is surprisingly balanced, not too sweet: like a boozey coffee ice cream. And that’s what we’re really always looking for, isn’t it? We overheard a passerby exclaim, “This is yummy!” before going back for seconds. Slow down, we’re not on the moon yet!

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge.

Sprudge Media Network’s coverage of the 2018 London Coffee Festival is supported by Cafe Imports, Acaia, Assembly Coffee, Oatly UK, Faema, and Loveramics.

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