Guinness cold-pressed coffee.

Then the new guy told me he home-brewed stout beer, and this changed everything.  Everyone seems into IPA's or sours, but it's stout all the way in this cave.  I told him I once tried adding a shot of espresso to a Guinness but I don't remember how it was so it must have been horrible.  He said, "try doing a cold press with a Guinness."  I was like, wow, THAT never occurred to me, I need to try that.

So I tried that.

Cold press coffee.  I discovered cold pressed coffee when I moved to California.  Though I had a job at Starbucks, a co-worker-slash-coffee nerd would stop by Diedrich Coffee on the way to work to get his iced coffee.  They used a toddy and the coffee was really a velvet bit of loveliness. I was hooked. We actually got permission to do this at our store (and our store only).  You throw a pound of coarse ground (french press setting) coffee in there, mix in cold water, let it sit 12 hours, drain.  It gives you a coffee concentrate that requires some added water before consuming.  After much experimentation I discovered if you make a standard french press with cold water, 12 hours later you'd get great coffee that didn't need additional water.

Monday morning, my weekend and the day before St Patrick's Day, I rolled over around 6:30 a.m. and thought, you know, if I get that going, it'll be ready by tonight.  So I got up and turned on the lights and got that going.

But I did ZERO research into proportions.  So I dumped the usual amount of coffee into the bottom of my 8-cup french press, opened a
Guinness that had been sitting on the counter a few days now, waiting, and looked into the bubbly mess thinking, this is going to be awful.

Also, the Guinness didn't fill the french press as I'd thought it would, so now I had a LOT of coffee in there with not enough stout.  I went back to bed.

Around three that afternoon I was convinced this would all be such a horrific mess, I went ahead and plunged the press.  Also, as there was so much coffee-to-Guinness, I thought pressing it early might just save it.

I poured it into a jar, and then a small bit into a glass to try.  It was molasses black.

I was convinced my next sentence would read, "It tasted like $#!t."

My actual next sentence is, "This stuff is weirdly delicious."  I mean, delicious.  Smooth and velvety, neither coffee nor stout prevail.  There is no bitterness, tartness, and in fact there is a sweetness in the Guinness that comes through in just the right way.

I absolutely need to do this again. One pint of Guinness is 16 ounces.  Starbucks standard measure is 2 tablespoons coffee to six ounces of water, but four tablespoons of coffee to one Guinness should be more than enough.  I'd even try only two. Either way, it can then be enjoyed over the course of a day or two versus the week or more I anticipate this current batch taking.  Either way, try it.