Conker Coffee Liqueur (35cl)

Since 2014, Conker Distillery has gone from strength to strength, and we’re proud to be able to stock their Coffee Liqueur in a smaller 35cl bottle, perfect for the adventurous home bartender. A strong sense of social and ethical awareness underpins everything Conker Distillery puts their name to. The distillery proudly fosters a sense of community in its Dorset home, hosting events such as quiz nights in its popular taproom, and has committed to a Net Planet Positive scheme to boost its social and environmental impacts. Its eclectic range of spirits is dominated by wonderful craft gins, including local speciality berry gins (raspberry and blackberry currently on offer), a fearsome 57% navy strength bottling to raise money for the RNLI, and a gin that has seen three years of maturation in a Port barrel. It is their coffee liqueur, however, which we’re highlighting here, and which should be a staple bottle in any cocktail-lover’s cabinet. The 100% Arabica coffee beans used are sourced from high-elevation farms in Ethiopia’s Southern Highlands and Brazil’s Sao Paulo state. In both communities, the coffee business helps improve the livelihoods of local farmers and their families; the Ethiopian smallholders from the Guji Zone eschew all pesticides, while the Croce family in Brazil have committed to natural farming methods and to hand-harvesting beans. Once in Dorset, the beans are minimally roasted in order to preserve as much of their natural quality as possible (the Ethiopian beans are given a light roast at 209 degrees, while the Brazilian beans undergo a 215-degree medium roast), before undergoing a 24-hour cold brew ensuring maximum smoothness and flavour extraction. This coffee is then blended with a wheat-based spirit distilled in-house – plus a dash of sugar – to create a magnificent liqueur. Unlike many more mainstream brands, this isn’t an overly sweet, artificially flavoured syrup, but a complex, balanced concoction bursting with vanilla and cocoa bean flavours.