The spiced stout syrup as an idea is not my own. My friends had been to Scotland, and they bought an Irish coffee kit there. Now that I see myself writing this I’m not so sure this is what happened…, so maybe they actually went to Ireland? Don’t remember, nor does it matter, because one of the ingredients in that kit was a spiced stout syrup, which it said would be really good in an Irish Coffee (or a Scottish one I guess?). I smelled it, and I was immediately sold. The aroma was just so rich and caramelly and mouth watering.
Clearly this was going to be quite straightforward to make and so I simply had to. I had made a spiced pear syrup some time before (I still have the recipe but for the life of me I can’t find the source anymore) that was very easy to adapt.
This was a while ago, and I made a few decent cocktails with it at the time. However, Kevin Kos recently released a most well-timed video about banana liqueur and cocktails with it. I was working on a dedicated menu for someone’s birthday party, and something with banana flavour was on the wish list. I didn’t really have any good recipes lying around, but Kevin’s Irish Espresso Stoutini seemed to fit exactly in this gap on the menu!
Although I went for store-bought banana liqueur instead of Kevin’s home made one, I knew my spiced stout syrup would be a excellent replacement for the Guinness syrup he used. Not to mention there would be pumpkin-spice banana cake at the party too, so this was going to be a perfect fit. And I can spoil the surprise right away, both the drink and the combination with the cake were amazing! On to the recipe!
First we gather the spices and grind them up a bit in a mortar and pestle:
- 12 g allspice
- 7 g cinnamon (about 2 sticks)
- 11 whole cloves
- 5 g mace
- 7g walnut (this is about 2-3 halves or so)
After grinding, we toast this spice mix in a dry pan for a bit until it starts to smell really good and maybe some of the walnut and cinnamon starts to look toasted as well (don’t burn it though, obviously).
We add the spices to a pan with about 500ml of imperial stout. I picked one that was nice and thick and solid, about 12% ABV, with notes of coffee and caramel but not too sweet, and some good bitter notes. Just your good old-fashioned imperial stout, no bells and whistles. You could split it with a regular stout like Guiness or something if you want it a bit less outspoken.
We let this simmer, and while we’re at it we add 2 tablespoons of cacao nibs to the mix. In the end I let it simmer for about 15 minutes (stir regularly, don’t let it boil). After straining, I had about 400 ml left. I do recommend straining through a cheese cloth or something, as due to the grinding before, there will be quite a lot of small particulates that will not be caught by a fine mesh strainer. It looks a lot better in the bottle without the junk, but if you can’t be bothered to filter extra, you won’t notice it in the drink.
The strained liquid is put back into a pan, and now we add the sugar and let it dissolve over a low heat. Super easy! I added 750ml worth of sugar to the 400 ml of liquid, which provided a little over 800 ml of syrup.
Try this in Kevin Kos’ Irish Espresso Stoutini, or keep an eye out on my blog for one of my own recipes that uses it.