For a sweet sip that packs a punch, Newground’s recently launched hard Lattes are your answer.
Gone are the days when craft drinks could only be obtained via fancy bars and coffee shops—and don’t forget a side of absurdly high price tags with your mediocre matcha chai latte—but thanks to Newground (@drinknewground), the new buzzy beverage company on the block, there’s a whole new playing field. Serving sweet sips with a kick in every can, Newground’s ready-to-drink malt beverages, dubbed Hard Dutch Lattes, are infused with real coffee and tea; and, arguably the best part, you can grab the boozy brew at your neighborhood grocery, convenience or liquor store. Hitting shelves late last summer, Newground revealed two Hard Dutch Latte products: the Cafe Latte, complete with coffee and caffeine (dibs!); and the Chai Latte, a caffeine-free, tea-infused option. Added bonus: Unlike other hard coffees out there, we actually like the taste of Newground lattes. And rightly so, with premium ingredients and natural flavors whipped together—plus a little nitrogen-based science experiment thrown in as the secret weapon (read “Taste Test” below)—it’s easy to see how you get that same fluffy froth as a traditional latte—sans the broken wallet and wait time. “It’s a real product that doesn’t have any bullshit in it,” says Phil Rooney, the brains behind the operations. “We knew if we wanted to be innovative and come up with something new, it had to be a top-notch product,” he adds. Maybe we’ve reached peak millennial, but if spiked coffee- and tea-infused drinks are wrong, then we don’t want to be right. So, grab a few friends and a few cans, and let’s get this party started.
Taste Test
How can one drink be so perfect? Here’s the tea... or coffee. On the ingredients list for the Cafe Latte? Dutch cream and coffee (and make it caffeinated), plus, our favorite part, alcohol. While the boozy brew’s premium ingredients—no artificial flavors, sweeteners or stabilizers (in any Newground products for that matter)—contribute to our obsession, it’s the drink’s fluffy and frothy consistency that keeps us coming back for more. “We wanted to make a latte, not a hard coffee,” says Newground CEO Phil Rooney. To achieve this, ingredients are poured into individual cans, then infused with nitrogen gas and finally sealed air-tight. The nitrogen eventually collects into a widget fitted to the bottom of each can, and once the top is popped, the nitrogen diffuses back into the beverage, giving it that creamy, velvety consistency (#science). “We had to make about 5,000 cans before we got it right,” admits Rooney. It’s safe to say they mastered it perfectly.
Photography by: Courtesy of Newground
