
As Mother Nature ratchets up the heat index to hellish highs this week, Meal Ticket is looking for new ways to chill out. We may have found it on Monday, when a post on a.kitchen's blog clued us into a new bottled iced coffee from J.P. Iberti and Todd Carmichael of La Colombe. Today, Carmichael confirms the icy, inky beverage, dubbed Pure Black, is no passing caprice: "It's been a labor of love for me," he says. "It went public just last week."
The Colombe guys have been working on perfecting their cold-brew for a while. "[Our] cold-press method is very different from any other cold-press process," says Carmichael. "The grind steeps 16 hours in a stainless-steel wine tank, oxygen-free. Then [it’s] pressed, then the brew is gravity-fed through two filters, then bottled without oxygen."
But the most crucial factor in the realization of Pure Black has nothing to do with how it's prepared. "[It's] my wife's patience," Carmichael says. "For three months, I used everything at the house for cold-press experiments, from vases to pressure cookers, everything in the kitchen all full of steeping brews, plus a full-sized liquid nitrogen tank and O2 meters next to the fridge."
The result is a brew with freshness and clarity that tastes strong but not muddy, and certainly not watered down. And you don’t have to wait to try it. Says Carmichael, "A fresh batch will be delivered to both Philly cafés later today."
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