Dear reader,
I’ve been thinking about coffee a lot. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to reduce my caffeine consumption. My reasons were vague—maybe it will help me sleep better, maybe it means fewer stains for the dentist to scrape off at my next cleaning. And given I really only had one to two cups every day, I didn’t think this would be a problem—surely I wasn’t caffeine-dependent. It turns out I was wrong and the headaches are real. For me, coffee has always been about the morning ritual: something to sip on while I get in a bit of reading before the sun comes up and the day starts. I don’t do coffee in the afternoon or after dinner. I just don’t enjoy it that much, which explains why I never got on board the espresso martini train.
I like all components of the drink fine enough on their own (espresso, vodka, coffee liqueur) but every espresso martini I’ve tried, be it a made-to-order one at a nice bar or a pre-mixed cocktail in a can, has had an artificial whiff about it—kind of like how I imagine a chocolate-scented scratch-and-sniff sticker would taste. But I could really go for one now.
Too bad Kahlúa has been yanked from the LCBO’s shelves. It turns out that even though the popular coffee liqueur is owned by French brand Pernod Ricard and made in Veracruz, Mexico, the bottles Canada typically imports are produced for the Kahlúa Company, which is based in New York, hence the boycott.
But that hasn’t stopped the city’s bartenders from churning out the coffee-based cocktails (mostly because the people demand them) which means they’ve just had to get a bit creative. In this week’s edition of Table Talk, you’ll learn how eight Toronto bars are dealing with the shakeup, and why they think the espresso martini is still so buzzy.
Also in this week’s newsletter: a Q&A with Toronto’s Grape Witches about what it’s like to be in the wine business when everyone’s boycotting American-made bottles.
For more of our food-and-drink coverage, visit torontolife.com or subscribe to our print edition.
