Name: The Best Iced Coffee
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 cup coarse-ground coffee; 4 cups cold filtered water; as needed ice; to taste milk, cream, or oat milk; to taste simple syrup or sweetener (optional); 1/4 tsp per glass vanilla extract (optional)

The Best Iced Coffee

Prep

Cook

Total

Bigly says

Let me ask you a question. When did iced coffee become a SEVEN dollar beverage? When? Name the day. Because what is happening at the coffee chains in this country — the green one with the lady, the orange one with the runs, you know who they are — what is happening is a CRIME. Four dollars. Five dollars. SEVEN dollars. For a cup of cold brown water with three pumps of vanilla SYRUP, served by a tired person who has been on their feet since 4am. It's a scandal. The biggest scandal in beverages. Bigger than Big Lemonade, and Big Lemonade is HUGE.

And the WORST part — they pour hot coffee over ice. Hot. Over. Ice. The ice melts in seven seconds and now you're drinking lukewarm sad water with a faint memory of coffee. People accept this. They PAY for this. They tip on top of this. Madness. Complete and total madness. Statisticians have run the numbers — a $5 daily iced coffee is $1,825 a year, that's a vacation, that's a couch, that's 47 nice dinners — and people just SHRUG and keep buying. You can make better iced coffee at home in two minutes, costs about eleven cents, and the only person you have to tip is YOURSELF. Tip yourself a five. You earned it.

The secret — and I'm giving you this for FREE, no popup, no newsletter signup, no cookie banner asking if you'd like to subscribe to 'IcedCoffeeWeekly' or whatever else they're pushing, the internet is a CARNIVAL of garbage and we're holding the line over here at BiglyEats — the secret is cold brew. You brew it cold, with cold water, overnight. That's it. That's the trick. It's smoother, it's less bitter, it's stronger, it doesn't get murdered by ice cubes, and your barista doesn't have to roll their eyes at you because there is no barista. You ARE the barista. You are TREMENDOUS at it. Hands down.

Ingredients

1 cupcoarse-ground coffee(coarse like sea salt, NOT fine, fine gives you sludge)
4 cupscold filtered water(filtered, your tap water has opinions)
as neededice
to tastemilk, cream, or oat milk
to tastesimple syrup or sweetener (optional)
1/4 tsp per glassvanilla extract (optional)(a little theater, not a syrup)

Steps

1
Combine the coarse-ground coffee and cold filtered water in a large jar, pitcher, or French press. Stir gently to make sure all the grounds are wet.
2
Cover and refrigerate for 12-18 hours. Twelve hours is the floor. Eighteen is the ceiling. Past that, it turns bitter.
3
Strain the cold brew through a fine-mesh sieve lined with a coffee filter or a clean cheesecloth into a clean jar or pitcher. If using a French press, slowly press the plunger down and pour.
4
Discard the grounds (or compost them — they're great for the garden).
5
The result is a concentrated cold brew. Store covered in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
6
To serve: fill a tall glass with plenty of ice. Pour cold brew over the ice, filling the glass about 2/3 full.
7
Top with milk, cream, or oat milk to taste. Add a small splash of simple syrup if you want it sweet. Stir well and drink immediately.

One more thing

That is iced coffee. Real iced coffee. Smooth, strong, no bitterness, no panic. You make it once on a Sunday night, you've got iced coffee for the whole week. The whole week. Your morning is fixed. Your wallet is FAT — well, fatter, fatter than it was, the coffee shop is no longer eating your savings — and you walk past the green-mermaid place and you smile, you smile a knowing smile, because you've moved on. You've ASCENDED. You're welcome.

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Ask Bigly about The Best Iced Coffee.

Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.

The Best Iced Coffee

Ingredients

Steps

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