The first time someone puts this in front of you, you assume they have made a mistake. Coffee is hot and tonic goes with gin — the two do not belong in the same glass.
Then you drink it, and the argument is over.
It works because the drink is not really about the coffee or the tonic. It is about what the sharpness does to the fruit that was in the coffee all along, and that you probably never noticed because you drink it hot with milk in it.
What you need
- 45ml Western Tamp Morning Roundup, brewed strong and cooled (or 30ml espresso, or 45ml cold brew concentrate)
- 150ml Indian tonic water, properly cold
- Ice — enough to fill the glass
- A wide strip of orange peel
The roast for this Morning Roundup From £11.95 How to make it
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Fill the glass with ice first
Right to the top, and use big cubes if you have them. A full glass of ice melts slower than a half-empty one, which is the opposite of what most people assume.
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Tonic in, coffee after
Pour the tonic over the ice and let it settle for a few seconds. Never the other way round — tonic poured onto coffee foams over the rim every time.
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Pour the coffee over the back of a spoon
Hold a spoon just above the tonic and pour the coffee onto it. It spreads the flow and the coffee sits as a dark layer on top. This is the bit that gets photographed.
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Squeeze the peel, then drop it in
Pinch the orange peel skin-side down over the glass so the oils spray across the surface, then drop it in. Do not stir. Let whoever is drinking it do that.
Why it works
Tonic water is bitter from quinine and sharply acidic from the citric acid — and a light-medium roast like Morning Roundup is already carrying citrus and brown sugar. Rather than fighting, the two bitternesses sit in different places on your palate and the fruit in the coffee reads much louder against the sharpness than it ever does in a hot cup. The carbonation does the other half of the work: bubbles carry aromatic compounds up out of the glass and straight into your nose, so you smell far more of the coffee than the same brew served flat. This is a fixture in Scandinavian cafés and it is dismissed by everyone who has not tried it.
Worth knowing
- It has to be a light or medium roast. A dark roast plus quinine is two kinds of bitter stacked on each other and it is genuinely unpleasant — that is the mistake that puts people off this drink for life.
- Use a proper Indian tonic. Slimline tastes hollow here and the sweetener clashes with the coffee.
- Grapefruit peel instead of orange if you want it sharper.
- Everything must be cold before it meets the ice. Warm coffee melts the cubes and you get a weak, flat drink in about ninety seconds.
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