Everything I Consume: The Toddy

Daisy Dumont checks out the Toddy.

The Toddy came yesterday. For those of you not hep to the cold-brewed coffee revolution the Toddy is the world's premier cold brewer. You dump a pound of coffee in the bucket on top, add water and twelve hours later 48 ounces of concentrated cold-brewed greatness flows out the bottom. Previously, I'd been using a pickle jar which was good for making twelve ounces or so but was tough to clean, small, and, hey, its not a Toddy. Cold-brewed is the new, hip way for making iced coffee and uses a technique long popular in New Orleans and Latin America. The coffee is less acidic and less caffeinated and, IMHO, make far superior ice coffee.

Iced coffee is an odd product because it seems everybody wants it but no one likes it. It's like there's an elusive perfect cup of iced coffee out there just around the corned, forever out of reach. Several years ago, Time Out New York ran an article on where to find the best iced coffee in New York. The conclusion was that they all sucked. I have had my own bad ice coffee experiences. Once at the Rockefeller Center Starbucks (not that one, the other one) the barista poured hot coffee over some ice and gave that to me.

And, of course, it's always overpriced.

A few observations:

I hate the name. The Mom of one of my best friends from high school used to call him Toddy and it we used to tease him by calling him Toddy.

The Toddy cold-brew was really strong. Maybe it was the coarse grind or the New Orleans style coffee (included in the package when you buy it off the Toddy website) I used but instead of 3 parts coffee cut with 1 part water I used 1 part coffee to 1 part water with a lot of milk and it was still very strong.

The cold-brewed flavor was oddly inconsistent in the course of the glass. It started a little bitter, achieved a velvety almost-chocolate goodness in mid-glass and then was a little watered down at the end.

So, a big thumbs up for cold-brewed coffee and the Toddy. If you like iced coffee go for it.