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Sunday night: The fit. The make-up. You're looking fierce and those chicken cutlets in your dress are serving eye-popping décolletage. But girl you're all dressed up with nowhere to go! Where can someone see and be seen by the upper echelons of fabulosity like yourself? Baby, you need to sashay that ass to Smart Bar's weekly Sunday service drag party, Queen! Tonight DMC and the Queen! resident party people will save your life.

Smart Bar, for the uninitiated, is the nightclub located under Metro and one of the United States' most important nightclubs featuring cutting-edge DJs from around the world. For the last 10 years, Queen! has been hosted by legendary drag queens Lucy Stoole, Jojo Baby, and Nico serving the looks with music selections by resident DJs Derrick Carter, Michael Serafini, and Garrett David. Consider it your weekly gospel to underground House and Disco.

For the coffee, we wanted to create a juicy, rich coffee cold, strong enough to keep you moving through the 4am crowd. Using a natural processed Pacas from Las Marias as the base with its red fruit notes, we paired this with a honey processed Sarchimor from Finca San Jeronimo Miramar to bring in the sweetness of brown sugar.

Together these create a balanced, smooth coffee cold and phantom disco balls clouding your vision.

'At just fourteen, LEO NOCENTELLI was backing up Otis Redding. Soon after, he was playing on hits for Lee Dorsey, The Supremes, and The Temptations...

For the blend, we've decided to pair two sides of a washed Guatemalan coffee (get it?), roasting one side to our typical light roast parameters and for the other side a bit heavier, caramelizing more of the sugars present in the bean. This darker component also matches the roastiness of the chicory, to further enhance that profile when brewing the two together. 

As an homage to his hometown of New Orleans and their coffee traditions, we have built this blend to pair well with roasted chicory root, a first for us. During times of economic crisis and coffee shortages, chicory root was roasted and blended with coffee to stretch the supply and has since become a staple in the coffee culture in Nola. 

This blend is a combination of two roast profiles on the following coffee:

Initially put together to support venues during the height of the pandemic, the first Situation Chicago LP successfully raised 35k for more than 25 stages. We're back for round two, and this time around, proceeds from the follow-up record go to the CIVL SAVE Emergency Relief Fund, powered by The Giving Back Fund, giving need-based grants to furloughed staff, local artists, and venues via need-based grants in the Chicagoland area. Volume 2 features tracks from Jeff Parker, Umphrey's McGee, and Fess Grandiose.

For this coffee cold can, we chose to highlight a fun, fruity coffee from El Salvador that went through a unique fermentation process. The Pacamara cultivar is a cross between Pacas and Maragogype, a spontaneous mutation of Typica with especially large cherries. Immediately after the cherries were picked, they were collected in an enclosed vessel using carbon dioxide to purge out any oxygen remaining. The intact cherries were left to ferment in this closed system, allowing the natural microbes and yeasts present to ferment the mucilage on the bean without introducing any outside factors. After a few days, the cherries were removed and dried in their skins on raised beds, further developing the acidity and complexity of the coffee.

Nightroamer is the third album from our friends Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, and we're happy to report their blisteringly energetic brand of punk-rock'n'roll-country fusion is more expansive and genre-defying than ever! Are they a rock-inspired country outfit or steel-guitar punk? Doesn't matter if it's this good. 

Inspired by this dynamism, we crafted a blend just as versatile as the band themselves: something that can be sipped and shared on the front porch, on the front dash of a tour van, in a honky-tonk roadhouse or a punk rock hole in the wall. Liz Pavlovic's violet night sky gives an indication of the blend inside: dark fruit notes and a twinkle of acidity. Honey processed Salvadoran coffee pairs creamy body (with more citrus acidity coming through as it cools),  with hints of berry notes provided by a Bourbon natural from the Pacas family. Is it a comfort cup or a heady dive? Doesn't matter if it's this good.

Lastly and definitely not least, we were graciously given three tracks from Nightroamer that are yours free via digital download when you purchase a bag through the DMC website. Make sure to grab the record here.
 

Blend Breakdown:

Jägermeister and coffee have a profound connection through the complex nature of each as well as the passion and dedication required to produce them. We've teamed up with the fine folks at Jägermeister to produce coffee and chocolate that marries the unique attributes of the world's favorite herbal liqueur to legendary coffee and chocolate. 

Drawing inspiration from the Jägermeister Cold Brew Coffee - a classic herbal liqueur with coffee and a high of chocolatey cacao - we created a unique, limited-edition line of non-alcoholic, Jägermeister Cold Brew Coffee-infused chocolate bars and coffee beans. 

Take heart in knowing with each sip and bite, you're enjoying a combination of family traditions, innovation and craftsmanship. 

Chocolate

For this collaborative chocolate bar, we used a well-rounded Trinitario from Chiapas that has been infused with Jägermeister Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur. Trinitario is a hybrid cacao cultivar discovered in Trinidad and Tobago and is a cross-pollination of Criollo and Forastero, two of the most common cultivars in the Americas. It has a dark fruit profile and complexity that pairs perfectly with the botanicals in Jägermeister Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur.