How It’s Made: Bourbon Coffee

You know what they say … Often imitated, never duplicated.

Fire Dept. Coffee perfected our signature infusion process and introduced our Spirit Infused Coffee back in 2016. Since then, coffee roasters from coast to coast and beyond have noticed its popularity and attempted to replicate the magic we created.

We may be biased — OK, we are definitely, unapologetically biased — but we believe that no other roaster has yet cracked the code to produce a Spirit Infused roast that matches ours. And our most popular roasts are our bourbon coffee varieties.

Let’s start by how it’s not made. It’s not made by pouring bourbon into your cup of coffee. That’s more of a mixed drink, and we don’t recommend it. Not for any sort of regular consumption, certainly.

Our Bourbon-Infused Coffee is non-alcoholic so you can enjoy the tastes of world-class coffee and fine bourbon anytime you want. Even while operating heavy machinery. Which we do often, considering many members of our team are active firefighters.

The Fire Dept. Coffee specialty is the product of our signature process that creates bourbon-infused coffee beans, creating a perfect blend that features notes of bourbon and coffee, simultaneously. 

We Don’t Do Barrel-Aged Coffee

Our formula for Spirit Infused Coffee has never been matched because we keep the finer details pretty close to the vest. But we will say this:

Our bourbon coffee is not barrel-aged coffee. 

We tried that approach in our earliest experiments with creating our spirit infused blends. What we found was that barrel-aging could produce very good coffee, but it could just as easily produce coffee that failed spectacularly in meeting our high standards.

The issue is consistency.

Every barrel is a little different, meaning that they come with different moisture and char levels, which have a significant effect on the end product. Some barrels will even leave you with a strange, funky flavor for reasons that you can never quite nail down.

When we send our coffee out into the world, it’s essential that we know exactly what we’re giving our customers. We want to know that we are giving them a consistently outstanding cup of coffee every time. That has never been negotiable for us.

A Direct Approach to Bourbon-Infused Coffee Beans

We ruled out barrel aging and went back to the drawing board. Eventually, we came upon an infusion process that gave us the quality and consistency we were shooting for. 

It has become our signature spirit infusion process. It’s relatively simple and easily repeatable, and it’s given us the ability to create a vast range of bourbon coffee flavors, including Black Cherry Bourbon Infused Coffee, Vanilla Bean Bourbon Infused and Salted Caramel Bourbon Infused.

These spirit infused roasts can be enjoyed however you like to drink your coffee — even cold brew or iced coffees.

Without laying out all our secrets here on the internet machine, we can tell you that our success is because we’ve figured out how to infuse bourbon (or Canadian whisky or rum or tequila or just about any spirit) directly into our coffee beans.

Just as every spirit is different, every coffee bean brings its own unique characteristics to the table. We source our beans from the world’s best coffee-growing regions. Then we work hard to find the perfect combination of bourbon and coffee bean to create a memorable taste that coffee aficionados will crave.

We have to drink a lot of coffee to get to that point. So it’s a good thing we love coffee. We know what to look for in a great bourbon coffee, so when we find that ideal blend, we all know it from the first sip.

Of course, our customers always let us know what they like best. So if you’re looking for a great bourbon coffee, check out our offerings and read the reviews.

We’re so proud of what we’ve created, and we think you’ll love it, too.