Stumptown Is Bottling a Cold-Brewed Version of its Very Best Bourbon-Variety Beans

Get it as a gift for someone you live with, and then steal some.

The two Arturos Aguirre, father and son, have been farming out the coffees of their Guatemalan Finca El Injerto estate to Portland for 13 years; it might be the best coffee Stumptown roasts. I prefer the warmth, fruitiness and wild complexity of the farm's gesha varietal, whose beans are already sold out this year.

But following up on last year's bottles of gesha Grand Cru, Stumptown is bottling a cold-brewed version of its very best and most distinctive bourbon-variety beans as if the result were fine scotch, made with a dry process that keeps each coffee bean's cherry exterior attached long enough to impart booming flavor to the roast.

At $32 for a 750-milliliter bottle (sold at Stumptown cafes), it's ridiculously steep to buy for yourself. Instead, get it as a gift for someone you live with, and then steal some. Each sip is a deep, dark-chocolate bonbon, with a lime-citric burst of acidity up front giving way to a wash of cocoa and notes of apricot and cherry, with an intensity of flavor that lingers long after each sip. Recommended.

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