If there was ever a place where a coffee bar can double as a chic place to enjoy an aperitif, the Meatpacking District is it. The soft lighting, the long, stainless steel bar aching to be leaned against, and the surprisingly lengthy list of coffee-infused cocktails all contribute to making Kobrick Coffee one of a kind.
During the day, Kobrick’s is a lovely European style café that is able to maintain a personality that is still 100% New York. The daily menu includes breakfast items, sandwiches, a selection of toasts and cheeses, and seems a lovely place to spend a lazy afternoon.
I attended the kick-off celebration of Kobrick’s Coffee Cocktail program, the next step in a family-owned business that has been a New York staple for 96 years. Their commitment to quality, small batch roasting has helped preserve the family legacy in their first brick-and-mortar location in the Meatpacking District. Kobrick’s spectacular product has helped influence the carefully crafted cocktails that were overwhelmingly received at this cool, classy launch party.
The most impressive aspect of this creative roll out is how effortlessly the coffee was woven into the cocktail. Expert hands have crafted the art you’re sipping, and you can pretty much pick your poison in terms of what type of liquor you’d prefer to imbibe. Even better, your options aren’t limited to chocolatey, dessert based cocktails or variations on an Irish coffee. My favorite was the Three Hour Kyoto Negroni, which is made with Kobrick’s bright single-origin Kenya coffee over a three-hour period in a Yama Cold Brew Drip Tower, a contraption that resembles something out of the Wizard of Oz. A close second is the Old Slip, which is aero pressed with an earthy Sulawesi coffee and bourbon and pays homage to the lower Manhattan area where the Kobrick family first started roasting its beans. A Chemex Bloody Mary in a pour-over style pot combines Worcestershire sauce, lemon, horseradish, vodka, tomato juice, salt and pepper, which are mixed and poured into the Chemex filter.
At one point during the evening, a well-dressed gentlemen who I presumed to be one of the owners abruptly reached out and stirred the chilies in the Bloody Mary filter a few times, in hopes of aiming for the perfect cocktail blend. All he needed to do was step back and admire his handiwork.
Twisted Talk: Have you been to Kobrick Coffee before? Are you a fan of coffee cocktails? Discuss below!
