St. George NOLA Coffee Liqueur

About St. George NOLA Coffee Liqueur

Founded in 1982 by German-born Jarg Rupf, St. George Spirits is one of the oldest craft distilleries in the United States. The distillery, housed in an old World War II airplane hangar on a former naval base on the edge of San Francisco, is home to Lance Winters, mad scientist and St. George’s master distiller.

Winters, who is widely-known for experimenting with different types of spirits, has a laboratory dominated by a 10-liter test still in addition to the glass beakers and graduated cylinders that cover every inch of counterspace. Next to the dusty chalkboards caked with equations for the conversion of sugar to alcohol and intricate diagrams of molecular structures are bottles of experimental whiskies, vodkas and even an aging balsamic vinegar (it’s 14 years old already).

St. George NOLA Coffee Liqueur is a New Orleans Coffee Liqueur “that has been on our wishlist for years,” says Winters. The liqueur is crafted using Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee beans, which are renown for their bright notes of fruit, cocoa, and milk chocolate. Before the beans arrive at the distillery, they are roasted medium-dark by Jewel Box Roasters, situated in Oakland, California, and then ground at a grain mill in order to extract the maximum flavor.

The coffee grounds are then cold-brewed in water and vodka before being distilled. This process helps “capture the largest spectrum of aromatic top notes, mid notes, and bass notes” from the coffee, says Dave Smith, a distiller at St. George Spirits. The coffee-based spirit is then infused with French chicory root and Madagascar vanilla beans, which contribute a sweet and earthy flavor profile to the smooth liqueur.

St. George NOLA Coffee Liqueur has an aroma of milk chocolate and coffee that gives way to notes of roasted nuts, espresso and a touch of brown sugar on the palate. The finish is soft, with the bitterness of the coffee beans rounded out with a sweet touch.

Serious Drinks says that the liqueur has a “full coffee flavor profile,” while the Los Angeles Times says that it “carries the taste of very good dark-roast coffee to an absurd length,” and is “fresh and sophisticated.” In addition, Imbiber says that the liqueur has a “robust and balanced” flavor profile.

Pick up a bottle today!