Iced Honey Coffee
Cold coffee and milk over ice, sweetened with honey that dissolves evenly instead of sitting at the bottom of the glass as a solid lump. Honey gives a floral, rounder sweetness than sugar, and it only takes a minute to make it behave.
At a glance
- Honey : water
- 1:1
- Active time
- 3 min
- Total time
- 4 min
- Makes
- 1 tall glass
- Serve
- Over ice
- Kit
- Tall glass
Ingredients
Note: Make a jar of honey syrup at a time: 100 g honey to 100 ml hot water. It keeps two weeks in the fridge.
Method
-
Make the honey syrup
Stir the honey into an equal amount of hot water until smooth. Add the cinnamon now if using, while it is warm.
One minute, and the honey will mix into a cold drink as easily as water.
-
Syrup and ice
Put the honey syrup in the bottom of a tall glass and fill it with ice.
-
Coffee and milk
Pour in the cold coffee, then the milk, and stir well.
Why this works
Honey on its own does not dissolve in iced coffee. It is about 80 percent sugar and only around 17 percent water, which makes it so viscous and dense that it sinks straight to the bottom of a cold drink and stays there as a sticky lump. Stirring helps a little, but at fridge temperature honey becomes even thicker, so most of it never mixes. The first sips are bitter and the last is pure honey.
Thinning it with an equal amount of hot water first makes a syrup that is far less viscous and mixes evenly into cold liquid. It is the same reason bartenders keep honey syrup rather than honey for cold cocktails. Warm water dissolves honey easily, and once diluted it stays liquid in the fridge.
Honey tastes different from sugar in coffee, and that is the point of using it. Fructose, the main sugar in honey, tastes sweeter than sucrose at cold temperatures, so you need less. Honey also carries floral and fruity aromatic compounds from its flowers, which is why a mild, light honey suits coffee and a strong dark one, like buckwheat, takes over. A pinch of cinnamon in the warm syrup complements both.
Cold brew makes the best base. Its low acidity and chocolatey body pair naturally with honey. A bright, fruity pour-over can taste oddly sour against honey's own acidity.
Variations
- Honey cinnamon oat: oat milk and a cinnamon stick in the glass.
- Honey lavender: steep a teaspoon of dried lavender in the hot honey syrup and strain.
- Hot honey latte: honey syrup in a hot latte, where plain honey works too.
- With lemon: a strip of lemon peel twisted over the glass, for an iced coffee with a bright edge.
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Questions
Why does honey sink in iced coffee?
Honey is very dense and gets thicker when cold, so it sinks and does not dissolve. Mix it with an equal amount of hot water first to make a syrup.
How do you make honey syrup?
Stir equal parts honey and hot water together until smooth. It keeps about two weeks in the fridge.
What honey is best for coffee?
A mild, light honey such as clover, acacia or orange blossom. Strong honeys like buckwheat or manuka overpower the coffee.
Is honey a healthier sweetener for coffee?
It is still mostly sugar. Honey tastes sweeter than sugar, especially cold, so you may use a little less, but it should be treated like any other sweetener.