Coffee is our ingredient of the season, and we’re slowly building up an archive of our favorite coffee recipes!
Today we’re sharing a super simple (and relatively quick) DIY coffee liqueur. For reference, Kahlua is a coffee liqueur. Our recipe is *like* Kahlua, but with the added benefit that you get to completely customize your formula, from the coffee flavor to the sweetness level.
DIY Coffee Liqueur
As with our other DIY liqueurs, there’s really nothing hard about making one. You just need quality ingredients and time.
When it comes to the coffee beans, use something that you like. Darker roasts will give you a richer flavor. You’ll want your coffee finely ground, and the fresher the ground, the better. If you don’t have a good grinder at home, then this may be the time to buy some quality beans and have them ground the day that you’re going to make this. Ask for an espresso ground. And remember that you don’t have to buy a pound of coffee… so splurge on a little bit of great quality beans.
And again, when it comes to the rum, you have options. I’ve seen a number of recipes that call for light rum, but I’ve tried this recipe with both light and dark and prefer the dark. Either way, it’s worth splurging on something nice.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup finely ground dark roast coffee beans
- 2 1/4 cups water (divided)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/4 cups rum
- vanilla bean
How-to
- Cold-brew the coffee by placing the 1/4 of ground beans + 1 1/4 cups of water in a jar with a lid. Shake the jar, and then let it sit for 12 hours.
- Sometime during the last few hours of the coffee brewing, make a simple syrup by placing the remaining 1 cup of water + 1 cup of sugar in a sauce pan. Bring the mixture to a light boil, stir to dissolve the sugar, and remove the pot from the burner. Let the syrup cool.
- When the coffee is done brewing, strain it through a coffee filter into a quart-sized jar.
- Add the cooled simple syrup + rum + vanilla bean to the jar with the filtered coffee. Let this mixture sit for three days, remove the vanilla bean, and enjoy!
Packaging + Gifting
This liqueur would make a great holiday gift. We packaged ours in these 375 ml bottles. And these are my favorite square craft paper labels.
If you’re planning ahead for the holidays, here are a few more DIY liqueur and alcohol recipes:
- ginger liqueur (another 3 day option)
- hazelnut liqueur (requires a few weeks for steeping)
- rosemary vodka
- candy cane vodka
Serving Suggestions
Well, you could use this instead of the hazelnut liqueur in an espresso martini.
But, Dude. You know what to do.
