The Food Hacks Guide to the Ultimate Homemade Kahlua & Irish Coffee

Coffee liqueur is pretty easy to make at home, and if you've read our guide on why instant coffee is a pantry essential, you know that we recommended the powdered stuff over fresh-brewed when making your own Kahlua at home...until now.

Inspired by Los Angeles-based company Fliquor Bean, which cold brews coffee in a base of whiskey (yes, whiskey) rather than water, I made Kahlua the lazy way by steeping coffee in ice-cold vodka for 14 hours and then adding the other ingredients (vanilla and sugar). I also took a page from Fliquor's book and made a second batch of cold-brew coffee, only using Scotch whiskey as the steeping liquid.

Fliquor Bean says that their cold-brewed boozy coffee is great for writer's block. Hmmm.

First, I went out and bought cheap booze and coffee. Don't judge me, I'm still real. I'm just cheap as hell and couldn't bear the thought of pouring coffee into a couple of cups of Glenlivet or Belvedere.

Altogether, the supplies came out to be a little over twenty bucks.

Next came the proportions. When I make cold-brew coffee, I usually follow Yumi's recipe. For these boozy versions, I used a ½ cup of coffee and 2 cups of vodka and Scotch respectively.

I figured that the alcohol would extract more flavor and aroma from the coffee, leaving me with a super-strong concentrate that would work well for my DIY coffee liqueur, in the case of the vodka, or served over ice, with the Scotch.

Yes, I know it's decaf, but that's what I drink.

The results? Pretty damn good. Both the coffee-and-vodka and coffee-and-Scotch brews were smooth with no hint of acidity. Best of all, both tasted like coffee—real honest-to-goodness coffee, but with a massive, for-adults-only kick.

Some tasters noted that they might prefer a smoother, sweeter liquor like bourbon in which to cold-brew the coffee, since Scotch, with its smoky notes, can be a bit much to take, especially for those who aren't Scotch drinkers.

Karen Ahn/WonderHowTo

And because the steeping process was so long, I could taste different notes of fruits, nuts, and spice in the coffee, all of which were amped up by the alcohol. Once I added agave and vanilla to the vodka version, I proclaimed it the best homemade Kahlua I'd ever produced.

L: a quick White Russian made with reduced-fat milk and my homemade Kahlua. R: Cold-brewed coffee made with Scotch.

The rich, strong flavor of coffee really enhances the liquor and vice versa, so if I were going to make either of these mixes again just for sipping over ice, I would definitely get a better brand of liquor, or use one of several easy methods to improve the taste of bottom-shelf vodka.

However, I think that cheaper vodka is just fine with homemade Kahlua, because any taste defects in the alcohol get masked by the sweetener and vanilla. Ditto with the Scotch whiskey, which I will save to make my own bastardized version of Irish coffee—with plenty of sugar and cream.