Lynne and I decided to change how we eat. This was not a diet for us but a lifestyle change. We decided to do a better job of monitoring caloric intake. I had already cut out pop/soda (about 3 years before) so really all I was drinking was water. When we decided to change the way we ate, water was already boring and cutting back on sweets and breads did not help the sweet tooth at all for me. When we discovered cold brew and how naturally sweet it was. I was hooked. We started experimenting with sugar-free/no calorie sweeteners. The fun part was mixing the various concoctions with no calories sweeteners and various types of cold brew together. The great thing was I could drink guilt free from a caloric standpoint. At most I was consuming probably around 10 calories per drink and my sweet tooth was happy.
If you are watching your caloric intake then experiment away with no calorie sweeteners. You get to try out what you like and see what type of flavor profiles show up when you are mixing cold brew and sweeteners. We have started a recipe page and we will continue to update this page when we come up with recipes that work well.
Words of advice:
A little bit of sweetener goes a long way, we aim to keep our sweetener add in to 1 ounce or less (for around 12 ounces of cold brew coffee). This seems to work all the way up to 24 ounces. Sure, you can do more but what we start to experience is all you taste is the sweetener and not the cold brew coffee. The goal is to achieve a balance of flavors where the cold brew coffee and sweetener are complementing each other and not overpowering the one another.
Even when mixing sweeteners together like Peppermint Paddy and French Vanilla we tend to keep the combination to 1 ounce (example: .3 oz Peppermint Paddy and .7 oz French Vanilla).
There are cold brew coffees that just don’t mix well with sweeteners. We have experienced sour flavors coming through at times with certain mixes. We even experienced a Tabasco type flavor when we add Sugar-Free Caramel to a cold brew coffee.
Sugar Free syrups we have used (no particular order):
- DaVinci Gourmet Sugar Free Caramel
- DaVinci Gourmet Sugar Free Vanilla
- DaVinci Gourmet Sugar Free French Vanilla
- DaVinci Gourmet Sugar Free Chocolate
- DaVinci Gourmet Sugar Free White Chocolate
- DaVinci Gourmet Sugar Free Original Hazelnut
- DaVinci Gourmet Sugar Free Peppermint Paddy
- Jordan’s Skinny Syrups Mocha
- Jordan’s Skinny Syrups Salted Caramel
- Jordan’s Skinny Syrups White Limited Edition Peppermint Bark
Part of the adventure is experimenting and figuring out what blend you enjoy. The nice thing is you have access to a drink that can be a treat and relatively guilt free when it comes to calories.
