It is a strange fact about human beings that we find bitter flavors unpleasant and yet we also seek them out. In the world of cocktails, and in the larger culinary world, people talk about this paradox in terms of “balance.” Something that’s too sweet tends to taste insipid. Something too bitter tastes toxic. Something too sour or salty creates an involuntary pucker. But put them in opposition and you get fresh-squeezed orange juice, a garlicky marinara, or the miracle that is a good cortadito: equal parts espresso and hot milk with just enough demerara sugar to take the edge off.
Just enough, of course, is a matter of high art.
Cocktail fundamentals (like Taoist meditations) rely on the same understanding of balance between extremes: a spirit, a sweetener, some bitters, a splash of water. Too much of any one thing and you’ve got something at best medicinal and at worst practically poisonous.
(Courtesy Grand Brulot)
Like a premium spirit, Grand Brulot mixes well with top-shelf bourbon, tequila reposada, and even Aperol.
Cocktails themselves may have started out as pleasant medicine, a way to trick the stubborn into swallowing beneficial herbs. Nowadays, we call those tinctures “bitters,” and use them to help balance out all sorts of mixed drinks.
Coffee reputedly got its start not as medicine but as a wild plant that inspired domestic goats to leap like kids. Arabic goatherds noticed what the flock was going on and began playing the balancing game with those goat-boosting berries, fire, and boiling water.
Coffee cocktails are like a juggler’s trick, balancing those two balancing acts in a game that continues to this day.
For some so-called connoisseurs, purity is the be all and end all of flavor. But the equanimous Biscayne tippler seeks out the best-balanced blends in the Miami melting pot.
(Courtesy Grand Brulot)
Grand Brulot co-founder Francisco Tonarely says the liqueur pairs beautifully with orange.
THE BISCAYNE BABY
Matt Malone, the founder of Miami Club Rum, followed a quest for the quintessential cafecito cordial all the way to Miami coffee royalty.
“I met Luis Bustelo through a mutual friend around 2017,” Malone said. He already knew he wanted to create a Cuban coffee liqueur with his handcrafted rum. He’d even designed a label for it. But what was going to go inside the bottle – that took a little more creative spirit.
“At that time, I was well into development of the actual liqueur formulation,” Malone recalled. “Sr. Bustelo and I began to talk Cuban coffee in detail.”
Bustelo, dubbed the Don of Cuban Coffee, was kind enough to give the rum maker pointers on blending and the subtleties of roasting. He trained Malone’s palate to detect everything that made a good shot of espresso great.
(James Malone)
Malone had the bottles for Miami Club Cuban Coffee Liqueur and Cafe con Leche Liqueur designed before he’d formulated what would go inside them.
“He was even there to participate in the final tastings of my recipe,” Malone said. “Bustelo liked what we came up with so much that he offered to endorse the product with his signature on the back of every bottle.”
Malone’s Miami Club Cuban Coffee Liqueur, and its creamy counterpart, Miami Club Cafe Con Leche Liqueur, are not made with the same Cafe Bustelo you get in the store or your local ventana, but a Cuban coffee blend made especially to balance the rum, and blessed by Bustelo himself.
Miami Club Cuban Coffee Liqueur debuted in 2018 at the Los Angeles Millennial World Spirits Competition, where it won double gold medals for Best Cordial and Best New Product for the year.
Does Malone’s liqueur really taste like a Cuban coffee? Yes, it does, if a Cuban coffee was to marry Kahlua and have a beautiful Biscayne baby.
But it’s not the Biscayne Corridor’s only coffee cordial.
THE BIG BURN
Francisco Tonarely has taken a different tack when balancing coffee with spirits. Instead of seeking to replicate a distinctly Miami flavor like Cuban coffee, he took the distinctly Miami approach of combining the best elements from everywhere.
And Tonarely knows a bit about everywhere. Born in Cuba, raised in Miami, he’s a longtime booze-business leader who was part of the team that brought Don Julio 1942 to market, as well as working for companies like Seagram’s and Bacardi. Now, he’s the co-founder of Grand Brulot.
(James Malone)
Miami Club Rum founder Matt Malone in the lab with coffee royalty Luis Bustelo.
The drink is based on a 200-year-old French tradition of blending cognac with spices, lighting it on fire, then pouring it, with a flourish, into coffee. “Brulot” is French for “firebrand.” Grand Brulot starts with VSOP cognac crafted by the Tandy family in France. then blended with spices and a particular kind of Ecuadorian coffee.
Figuring out the specifics took work.
“I always want to start from a point of humility, to know what I don’t know,” Tonarely said. “I knew nothing of cognac, so I just started playing.”
After sampling several XO and VSOP cognacs, he found one aged for six years in charred barrels. “I could taste the peppercorn, almonds, honey – that’s the charring in the barrel,” he said.
Then, he and his partner in France started playing to find just the right coffee.
“Arabica beans from North Africa resulted in a drink that was too sweet, so we turned to robusta beans from Ecuador,” Tonarely said. “Robusta is only 37 percent of the world market because it tends to be very bitter. But it contrasts with the sweetness of cognac. The perfect balance.”
French cognac with Ecuadorian coffee isn’t going to be mistaken for a cafecito, but, Tonarely said with a smile, “If I could get every Cuban at Versailles to try this…”
Because of its high quality, Tonarely said his liqueur works really well with bourbon or tequila reposado and is amazing with Aperol. But his favorite way to drink it is this: “Rocks glass, two fingers of Grand Brulot, and a strip of orange peel. It is insane with orange.”
Tonarely also recommends trying Grand Brulot in a carajillo, a coffee cocktail he expects will soon be replacing the espresso martini, and the Key Biscayne Yacht Club’s Last Night in Paris, which goes beyond the subtle essence of an orange twist into something more fully fruity with banana liqueur.
At A Love Story Bistro, the bartenders share their Grand Brulot supply with the pastry chefs, who use it in their tiramisu. You’ll also find Grand Brulot cocktails all over Miami, from Kyu in Wynwood, to Smith and Wollensky on South Beach, all the way to Cafe La Trova in Little Havana, and Caffe Abbracci in Coral Gables, as well as plenty of places in between.
But Tonarely’s most unexpected Grand Brulot cocktail comes as a total surprise. Mixed with vodka and tomato juice into a lightly caffeinated Bloody Mary, it becomes a drink called the Wake Up Marie. You’ll have to drive a few hours north of the Florida-Georgia line to order one at Le Bilboquet in Atlanta.
How could that combination work? They found a way to balance it.
Or as Tonarely puts it: “You got the kick and the buzz!”
Grant Balfour is a Miami Beach native, writer, editor, traveler, musician, bon vivant and our official Biscayne Tippler.