Summer Madness, AKA Summer in the City, AKA Everybody Loves the Sunshine, AKA...

  Summer has landed in Chicago in the same way we've been known to descend on a tray of hot dogs - hard, fast, and sweaty. The days are getting longer, paleta men are hitting the streets, and things are opening up at a pace that a year ago seemed impossible. Hell, we even already got started in on the festivities by opening up the backyard patios and having artists paint up our picnic tables!

For us, the rising thermometer is always associated with an increased consumption of coffee cold, and lord do we love our coffee cold. Supercharged and super tasty, these ice cold babies are the lifeblood of many at music and beer fests everywhere and a daily requirement for function for yours truly (and hey, maybe you too!). After a year of our 2019 caterpillar selves metamorphosing into the beautiful 2021 butterflies we've all become, it's time to enter the world again with the energy of a people that have been inside for the better part of 14 months. There's so many things to do in a city crawling its way out of a pandemic, we'd be remiss if we didn't take the opportunity to present Summer activities and their perfect coffee cold counterparts. 

Chocolate City - Sports!

Chocolate City is an all-time classic in the iced coffee world, the perfect balance of both get up and go with a taste that makes it easy to throw back time after time. It's also a great companion for those all-day skate sessions or a precursor to catching a day game. Hell, maybe you're just shooting hoops in the backyard. Either way, Chocolate City is the gold standard for a clean and tasty caffeine boost.

Vanilla Suburbs - Live Music!

 With Lollapalooza, Pitchfork, AND Riot Fest all making their returns this year, you're gonna need some get up to get down if you're ever gonna survive all three weekends. Lucky for you the smooth sweetness of Vanilla Suburbs is there to serenade you with flavor and energy like Limp Bizkit is sure to do at this year's Lolla. Granted, in their case that flavor is hot dog water and ours is just like, vanilla? You know what, maybe this one got away from us...

Brown Acid - Brewery Bike Tour!

  Sometimes the only thing better than an afternoon at a brewery is an afternoon of biking to a whole mess of them with your friends. Here's the problem - ya can't bike around drinking all day without ending up on your ass. Luckily you can keep things rolling and your mouth full of hops with our Brown Acid dry-hopped coffee cans.

Black Splash - Backyard BBQ/Park Hangs!

What's better than a casual hangout with some nice libations? Our Black Splash barrel aged iced coffee is the ideal warm-up for a full day of grilling and chilling with friends. Simultaneously sweet and boozy, Black Splash is a top tier cocktail companion or perfect to wash down a hamburger hot off the grill.

We are proud to announce our newest music collaboration with the dynamic duo Klevah and TRUTH a.k.a. Mother Nature! Their newest mixtape SZNZ off of Closed Sessions is a fifteen track instant CLASSIC featuring production work from the unstoppable Boathouse and guest verses served up from the likes of Brittney Carter, Valee, and Sir Michael Rocks. Honestly? We've had the thing on repeat since it dropped. We're not the only ones either, they've been reeling in acclaim from the likes of Complex and Pigeons and Planes. Overall SZNZ is brimming with bombastic, no bullshit attitude, meaning that we HAD to step in and provide a companion coffee to match! The can features album artwork and, in a first for us, a QR code that takes you straight to the mixtape so you have no fucking excuse to not check out the vibes. We also had the pleasure of hosting an interview in our Maggot Brain studio between Mother Nature, Boathouse, and Closed Sessions label co-founder Alexander Fruchter, followed by an in-studio performance of a few tracks off the album. You can watch that below.

This isn't our first time working with Closed Sessions or Boathouse, either. In 2019 we teamed up to put out a crazy double 7" celebrating their 10 year anniversary with a coffee and can to match. We've also hosted multiple members of the Closed Sessions crew during our annual Anniversary party and can tell you with certainty, they all rule.

 About the Coffee

Inside the can, the coffee is a Sampacho from El Salvador that underwent an experimental fermentation process called Carbonic Maceration. Sampacho as a cultivar is a short and sturdy plant, about half the height of other varietals. It's perfect for the mountains of El Salvador where high winds can whip through farms and cause damage to taller coffee trees.

Once the cherries were picked at the peak of ripeness by the Cafe Tuxpal team, they were collected in an airtight container and flushed with carbon dioxide to force out any oxygen. This allows for extended contact between the seeds and the mucilage without outside exposure to air or foreign yeasts. After the coffee has time to chill in these containers, they're processed as a Natural coffee by placing the cherries directly onto raised drying beds and continuing fermentation. We ended up with a bright and acid driven profile, with notes of blueberry, grape, and dark chocolate showing themselves on the cupping table. You can grab the cans here.

If there's been one plant that's served as inspiration for DMC over the year, besides coffee of course, it's gotta be the Devil's Lettuce. You know: kush, cheeba, herb, gas. Whatever you wanna call it, it's been one of our muses since the get-go. With that in mind, Devil's Lettuce is one of our annual blends and offering to the gods of ganja, always accompanied by the artwork of DMC mainstay Jason Brammer and, often times, a mixtape to put you in the right headspace. We're going through designs past and the adjunct tunes to puff puff pass on the cheer during the kindest month of the year. But first, we sat down with Jason to discuss music, art, inspirations and more:

2014

We did it again! Another year another SuperCollider series of highly curated - or should we say curated highly? - bands from the talented Dark Matter Coffee extended family. Catch up on all five nights with the music from the live stream below.