Cannonball Coffee are one of my favourite coffee companies, and recently I purchased a couple more of their roasts.
The “Dark Charge” and the 30-day whiskey barrel-aged beans.
This isn’t so much a full review of both, because it’s the same high-caffeine robusta beans that I’ve already reviewed. No, what’s special here is how they’ve been treated differently, and how differently they taste.
So here’s a quick run down of both batches.
Whiskey coffee?
Yeah, that’s right. Cannonball Coffee took the excellent beans they use and put them in a whiskey barrel to age for 30 days.
So, what happens then?
Whiskey isn’t my favourite drink. In fact, I’m a little bit of a wuss when it comes to drinking it. I love the idea of it, but there’s something that just doesn’t work for me.
It seems to me, though, that coffee is a wonderful base for whiskey flavours. Peaty, woody and rich. Coffee shares similiar attributes and Cannonball Coffee are just bloody good at what they do, they made a perfect blend here.
I smashed through this 250g bag of whiskey-flavoured joy. Mostly brewed in the Aeropress with a medium-fine grind. The whiskey flavour just sits really nicely in the background, never over-powering, but always there.
Such a treat!
I’ve been drinking Cannonball Coffee for most of lockdown, and having that new twist on it really worked. I would buy this by the kilo.
You don’t have to be a whiskey fan to enjoy it. A sweet-woody flavour hovering around those core notes that I enjoyed so much in my original review
Pro tip: Buy these as beans so you can grind them and release that smell! What a treat!!
Dark Charge
What happens when you take one of my favourite coffees and roast it for longer?
Well……..you release different flavours.
I love a dark roast, so I was particularly excited by the dark charge. Cannonball Coffee know their bean. They’ve mastered their chosen robusta and discovered that the medium roast is where best to unlock the flavour.
How does roasting it darker work out, then?
A quick breakdown would be to say that it’s definitely more bitter (to be expected), but it has a touch of dark/cooking chocolate about it. There’s a more carbon-like taste that kind of muted the other flavours, but it wasn’t a bad thing.
The Dark Charge is a great example of how you can change a flavour profile, by simply roasting for a bit longer. It gives me that bitterness that I love so much. But after I’ve grown so used to the medium roast of these beans, I think Cannonball mastered them in the first place.
I love having options, and different flavours, but if I was given the choice I’d go back to the classic Cannonball roast most often.
Of course, taste is subjective, and honestly…….I’ll be ordering more of both in the coming months and years.
Do the double
Honestly, I just love good coffee and people that love making good coffee. That’s Cannonball Coffee, through and through.
If you’re looking to steer away from the original medium-roast, in search of a flavour. Get your order in on that limited batch of Whiskey-aged goodness.
If you want something darker and sharper to hit you in the face in the morning, Dark Charge will do the job.
Either way, it’s evident to me that Cannonball Coffee have been working their asses off on their coffee, and seeing them mix it up a little is great.
I genuinely can’t wait to see what they deliver next!