Listen, as your average New Yorker, the ritual of morning coffee (and, let’s face it, afternoon coffee) has become deeply ingrained into my everyday life. And just like airlines who proudly proclaim at the end of a flight, “We know you have many choices when you fly, so thanks for flying Airline XYZ,” I know that you have A TON of options when you need your cup o’ joe — whether you’re zipping into a coffee shop or purchasing it at the grocery store to drink at home.

I mean, I used to order at the Starbucks near my old office in Times Square purely out of convenience. (Nothing against ’em, I just found myself on autopilot after four years.) But now that I work remotely, we’ve started to up our coffee game in the same way that we care about cocktails, beer, and wine.

Enter RISE Brewing Co., whose nitro cold brew coffee has become my on-the-go coffee of choice. With its current roundup of coffee cocktail collaborations across the country and delicious products, here is why it’s going to be your next coffee obsession.

What’s the Deal with RISE Brewing Co.?

Ironically, I first encountered RISE Brewing Co.’s nitro cold brew coffee (without realizing it) in cocktail form at one of my favorite Brooklyn brunch spots, Colonie, in 2016. Colonie’s Coffee & Cigarettes cocktail — which features Las Hormigas Mezcal, Cynar, Punt e Mes (vermouth), and RISE Nitro Cold Brew — is my favorite coffee cocktail of all time.

The main reason I loved Colonie’s Coffee & Cigarettes cocktail so much? The creamy nitro cold brew it used was dynamite. However, I didn’t realize it was RISE Brewing Co.’s nitro cold brew until very recently, when RISE reached out to me about sampling their coffee cocktails — one of which, you guessed it, was my beloved Coffee & Cigarettes drink.

Mind. Blown. Once I learned that RISE Brewing Co. is the producer of the nitro cold brew in the cocktail I love so much, I knew I had to learn more.

The 411 on RISE Brewing Co.

It turns out that the Colonie connection wasn’t coincidental: RISE Brewing Co. formally launched out of Colonie back in spring 2015.

Prior to then, co-founders (and childhood friends) Jarrett McGovern, Grant Gyesky, Justin Weinstein, and Hudson Gaines-Ross were tinkering around, brewing nitrogen-infused cold brew in McGovern’s New York City apartment in 2014. (As one does — does this related cocktail origin story sound familiar?)

Once their nitro cold brew publicly debuted at Colonie, demand increased as its popularity grew and grew. Their current production is based out of Stamford, Connecticut.

RISE describes their nitro cold brew like “a super light, refreshing stout beer meets iced coffee with a frothy, creamy head.” Translation: if you love the texture and mouthfeel of Guinness, you will LOVE this. It even has the same satisfying fizzing sound when you open one of their cans.

Why You’ll Love RISE Brewing Co.

There’s lots of reasons to love RISE’s nitro cold brew coffee. Here are mine, in no particular order:

• You get a lot of caffeinated bang for your buck. RISE has 1.5 times more caffeine than standard coffee. Can we say super caffeine buzz?
• Low acidity. RISE is 70% less acidic than standard coffee.
• It’s naturally sweet. RISE sources naturally sweet, chocolatey beans grown at high altitude in Peru’s Chanchamayo Valley.
• There’s nothing artificial in it. RISE is free of harsh chemicals and additives. Its ingredients are organic and non-GMO. Plus, the coffee beans are fair trade. Score!
• Lactose intolerant or simply avoiding dairy in your diet? You’re in luck. With the exception of RISE’s Classic Latte, their other five flavors are dairy-free. This is key for me, someone who’s been adding Lactaid to their coffee for years.

Want to check out RISE’s coffee in person? Their flagship nitro cafe at 79 Delancey Street in New York City recently opened in October 2018. They also have a full cafe and bar inside of the clothing store Phluid Project, NYC’s first gender-neutral shopping space, as well as a counter in the Away Luggage flagship store in SoHo.

Psst… Need More Awesome Coffee in Your Life?
RISE Brewing Co. is running a (secret) sale right now for readers of It’s Five O’Clock Here. Get 15% off your entire order when you use the code FuelYourMindwithRISE on RISE’s website. That’s not an affiliate link — I just love their products and want to get the word out about this awesome company.

What’s Better Than Coffee? When It’s In A Cocktail, Of Course!

All right, I know that headline is just my (somewhat biased) humble opinion. But just like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, coffee and cocktails are two of my favorite things.

So I was stoked to learn that RISE is collaborating with bars across the country to create mouthwatering coffee cocktails. You can currently find these cocktails at:

• New York City: Colonie (Brooklyn); No Fun and Grey Lady (Manhattan)
• Connecticut: Old Greenwich Social Club
• Portland, OR: Backwoods Brewing Company and Bit House Saloon
• Seattle: The Crescent Lounge

But hurry — these cocktails are only around until the end of the year. So grab ’em while they’re hot — er, I mean cold!

Sampling RISE’s Coffee Cocktails in Manhattan

Recently, I was fortunate enough to taste some of RISE’s coffee cocktails at No Fun in Manhattan. No Fun is the kind of Lower East Side bar that I didn’t think I had been to … only to realize later in the night that yeah, I definitely had been there three years ago after a cocktail or two… or three.

Brendan was tending bar that night for us, and he served up some excellent drinks using RISE’s nitro cold brews.

The first of these was the Sunday Morning cocktail, which featured RISE’s Lemonade nitro cold brew alongside Elijah Craig bourbon, muddled blueberries, blueberry maple syrup, and lemon juice. It was his play on a bramble, which is a refreshing and fruity cocktail that I love. The citrusy flavors of RISE’s lemonade float on top worked perfectly with the blueberry notes.

The second, called Wake Up, It’s Dark Out, utilized RISE’s Original Black Nitro Cold Brew. It included Sombra mezcal, rum, Fernet Branco, and maple syrup. I thoroughly enjoyed Brendan’s use of Sailor Jerry spiced rum, as it turned a potentially sweet cocktail into something more well-balanced.

The third, Oat Session, mixed RISE’s Oat Milk Latte with cream of coconut, Graham’s Tawny Port, and lemongrass infused vodka (Zubrowka). This one was dangerous — it didn’t taste boozy at all, and I could see myself having a few without realizing its potency!

I really enjoyed that RISE’s coffee cocktails go beyond the standard Espresso Martini and veer into more complex territory. If the drinks I had at No Fun in Manhattan are any indication, the drinks at RISE’s other partner institutions should be good as well.

The Ultimate RISE Coffee & Cocktail Taste Test

So it’s all well and good when a highly trained bartender makes elevated coffee craft cocktails for you. Odds are you’re going to get something that rocks your palette, and on this front, RISE and its partners delivered. But what about us home bartenders over here?

On a recent wintry night, I gathered my usual crew for a “highly scientific focus group” — read: coffee and cocktail taste test — to check out RISE’s products and how well they hold up in cocktails you can make at home.

Here are the results from our four unbiased, willing test subjects and their no-holds-barred opinions.

Round #1: RISE Nitro Cold Brew (On Its Own)

We started the night by having Miss Scarlet, Bourbon Broad, Miss Alphabet, and Well Read Vintage taste each of RISE’s six nitro cold brews on their own.

I poured the Lemonade and Blood Orange nitro cold brews first without telling them what they were going to taste — more for the shock value as opposed to any kind of sound research design. Despite their names, these cold brews are still brown in color and smell like regular cold brew. It worked: their faces turned sharply from confusion and befuddlement to thoughtful consideration.

After sampling all six, RISE’s Mocha Latte nitro cold brew emerged as the clear favorite. Miss Alphabet preferred the traditional Original Black nitro cold brew. Other amusing observations from the crew:

• “The Original Black is like a caffeinated Guinness with no booze. And that sound when you open it is so incredibly satisfying.”
• “The Classic Latte reminds me of frappucinos at Starbucks, but in a good way. This is a more chill version of it — like if you took the frappucinos and removed the overload of sugar and gross, crappy stuff.”
• “I like the Lemonade nitro cold brew with whiskey in it. Everything is always better with whiskey.”

Round #2: RISE Irish Coffee

I’ll be honest: sometimes I just want a simple, no nonsense, non-fussy cocktail at night. Our first cocktail of the night, then, was a take on an Irish coffee. The recipe is as follows:

4 oz RISE Classic Latte
1 oz Barrel Strength (60% alcohol) whiskey
Sprinkle cinnamon on top

We used 77 Whiskey from Breuckelen Distilling Company for this cocktail; if you use whiskey that is lower in alcohol content, just add a little bit more to balance it out. Well Read Vintage noted that the drink “feels like the holidays,” and Miss Alphabet agreed that it was “a classy, creamy, boozy eggnog that I could also make at home.”

Round #3: A Whole Latte Love

Our next cocktail was similar to the first, but more complex in terms of ingredients and taste. Here’s the recipe:

1 oz apple brandy (We used Laird’s)
1 oz cognac
1/2 oz Becherovka
4-5 oz RISE Classic Latte (to your desired strength)
Can also sprinkle cinnamon on top

We used Pierre Ferrand Ambre as our cognac because it has distinct apple notes that we felt paired nicely with apple brandy.

Well Read Vintage described this drink as “a creamy mulled cider, but cold,” and Bourbon Broad liked how it was “less creamy and more spicy” compared to the first drink. We also tried swapping the Classic Latte for the Oat Milk Latte in this recipe, but that didn’t work so well (i.e., they said it tasted “like a muffin I would eat to be healthy and I don’t want to be healthy right now”).

Round #4: RISE From the Ashes

Our final cocktail used RISE’s most popular nitro cold brew in combination with Cardamaro, a wine-based digestif amaro from Italy. Cardamaro is infused with cardoon and blessed thistle, two relatives of the artichoke.

Here’s the recipe:

2 oz Cardamaro
3 oz RISE Original Black Nitro Cold Brew
1/4 oz Demerara syrup
2 dashes of Angostura bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a coupe glass. Note that the demerara syrup should be a 1:1 ratio of demerara sugar and water.

Overall Impressions

Though they joked that RISE could be “the new energy drink for the over-21 set who dislike Redbull,” the crew genuinely liked the Mocha Latte, Oat Milk Latte, and Original Black nitro cold brews. They felt that some of the drinks, particularly the Lemonade and Blood Orange nitro cold brews, worked better in cocktails instead of on their own. Overall, though, they confirmed that they’d drink RISE coffee again in the future.

Connect With RISE Brewing Co. on Social Media

Want to learn more? You can connect with RISE Brewing Co. at https://risebrewingco.com or on the following social media platforms:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

Psst… Need More Awesome Coffee in Your Life?
RISE Brewing Co. is running a (secret) sale right now for readers of It’s Five O’Clock Here. Get 15% off your entire order when you use the code FuelYourMindwithRISE on RISE’s website. That’s not an affiliate link — I just love their products and want to get the word out about this awesome company.

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Essential Info if you plan to visit NYC bars serving RISE’s coffee cocktails:
Where should you stay in New York City? Check out all options here.
Want a guidebook for New York City? I recommend this guidebook.
What else have I written about coffee? Read my posts on coffee here.
Have questions for me? Hit me up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest!

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A huge thank you to RISE Brewing Co. for providing us with complimentary coffee cocktails at No Fun in Manhattan, as well as a case of RISE nitro cold brew to concoct some of our own caffeinated cocktails. While we thoroughly enjoyed creating magical cocktail wizardry with these products, all opinions are my own. Not even a delicious craft cocktail can change that.