Death Wish coffee is a threat to your taste buds (complimentary)
Death Wish coffee is a threat to your taste buds (complimentary)
Welcome back to FTW's Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
I have a friend who swears by Death Wish coffee. But he's also a vaguely intense dude who wakes up before his kids rise to sneak in hour-long workouts. As such, something about the "world's strongest coffee" felt a bit excessive to me, a guy who wakes up minutes before he has to get his daughter on the bus and then spends the next few hours quietly figuring out which NFL quarterbacks are actually bad.
Despite that lack of early morning... anything, really, caffeine plays a major role in my life. My day starts with 40 to 50 ounces of water, then about 20 ounces of coffee. Usually that's mixed with milk and some protein powder to carry me through to a late lunch. But I'm open to new experiences and, inconveniently, out of milk. What I do have is a new brand of coffee to try (Death Wish) and a new creamer I've never had before. Enter Oatly's Sweet and Creamy and Barista edition oat milks.
I don't mess with oat milk often. I think the only time I've ever had it was in premixed canned cold brews. While it doesn't scratch the itch cow milk does, it's a reasonable swap with a longer shelf life, so I can get behind it. Let's try the pairing, along with some of my traditional coffee blends, and see how they turn out.
Blue and Buried Death Wish with Oatly Sweet & Creamy Oatmilk Creamer: A
This coffee is pungent in a great way. It's clean, sweet blueberry with a little vanilla ice cream underneath, sitting on a mild current of coffee beans. It reminds me of bringing a fresh pint of SweetWater Blue up to my lips on trivia night back in grad school, which is a weird place to go with coffee but is a nice olfactory callback.
The creamer looks the part, turning black coffee into a swirling brown nebula. A few white flecks serve as stars in that spiral, concentrated oak milk dislodged from the outer reaches of the bottle by shoddy shaking. I'm sipping this out of my Created Paris not-quite-Olympics mug, which not only looks great but also holds juuuuuust enough coffee to get me through a cup before it gets cold.
The oat milk creamer adds to the whole "melted ice cream" vibe wafting off the top of this warm mug. Oh, wow. Between the sweetness of the berries, the cream of the Oatly and the underlying plant base you really do feel the cereal vibes from the first sip. It's not overpowering in terms of sugar, but it's enough that I'll try the next cup without a packet of Splenda in it. Still, it's a charming blend of flavors I like with just enough coffee taste to remind you you're about to get blasted with caffeine.
It continues to hold up without the added sugar substitute, though it's a little more coffee this time around and less "milk left over after crushing a bowl of Boo Berry." If you're looking for pure coffee flavor, this isn't for you. But if you're like me and happy to add fruit and dairy(ish) and whatever else in an effort to make your coffee more interesting (and less like coffee), it's an easy win.
Light Roast Death Wish with Oatly Sweet & Creamy Oatmilk Creamer: B
Unlike the blueberry, this smells like pure coffee bean goodness. The caffeine content is... well, let's say confusing. Death Wish maintains its claim of "strongest coffee in the world" applies to the taste. But estimates on the caffeine content vary wildly. Some come out as high as 400 milligrams per eight ounces which is... whoa. The instant version of this light roast clocks in at a more manageable 300.
That is a full day's worth on a long, NFL Sunday. The higher bound would be more than four times the typical amount in a cup of coffee (95 mg). Per Death Wish's sales pitch, the Blue and Buried only clocks in at around double the caffeine of a typical mug. In my personal experience, while I do feel a bit more jittery than my usual cup I don't feel like I'm ingesting a threatening amount of caffeine. I still get to sleep at night and my afternoon crash, while still a problem, isn't any worse than it usually is.
Well, OK. Back to the taste.
It still smells great. The first sip is a pretty basic light coffee flavor, quickly washed out by the sweet cereal jazz of the Oatly. The creaminess is a bit overpowering, which is great for me as a guy who generally only drinks regular coffee at conventions or hungover at breakfast places that don't offer Bloody Marys. As a result, the brew itself is more of a conduit for cream and caffeine than anything you'd get on your own.
Hold on, lemme give it a swig with a fresh, black cup.
Light Roast Death Wish, black: B
It's a flavorful coffee, not overly harsh or acidic. It's light enough to be a fairly easy sip without sugar or cream. There's overt roasted dark chocolate vibes in each sip before a dry finish. There's a liiiiiitttttle bit of fruit sweetness as well, but it's very minor.
Ultimately, black coffee isn't my jam. But Death Wish's light roast is something I could sip without regret in a pinch.
Espresso Roast with Thread Performance vanilla protein mix: B
Let's get back to my normal coffee routine, which is probably slightly offensive to coffee snobs. I drink mine with a protein shake as creamer, a combination that gets me in a decent spot for an afternoon workout while serving as breakfast and getting me to my usual 2 p.m. late lunch without hunger pains. As such, I'm not getting the full flavor of Death Wish's espresso roast.
Still, you get the darker, roasted flavors that shine through that binding layer of whey. It's rich with a little bit of burnt chocolate to it -- not in a bad way, but more like a sweeter version of burnt ends. It blends well with the sweeter vanilla, creating a pleasant push-and-pull. As a coffee wimp, I need that tempered experience. I get the impression this espresso would stand up well on its own, but dosed with creamy vanilla protein it works out even better.
Dark Roast Death Wish with Thread Performance vanilla protein powder: B+
The dark roast tones down the caffeine but offers a bolder, smoother coffee flavor. You do taste that extra heat, not quite a char but a little reminder these beans have spent some time in the fire. That rises above the taste of my daily protein -- I'll be talking about my five-week Thread Performance plan later, but it was solid enough for a basic-tasting powder -- and brings a little less acidity than the lighter coffees I'm used to.
There's a little chocolate in there and very little bitterness. The big flavors coat your tongue with that roasted coffee taste. It's strong, and it's a lot to handle for a nerd like me who's happy to take a good cup of coffee and mash it into something less with milk and Splenda. But hey, I ruined it and I still liked it, so that's something... right?
Peppermint Mocha: A
First off, this smells incredible. Rich and minty with a little bit of chocolate that has wafted across my kitchen to make my morning a little more tolerable. This is the diffuser I needed.
I'm sipping this with a Splenda and some oat milk creamer (Oatly Sweet & Creamy) since I figure vanilla protein and mocha mint probably aren't a good combo -- or, at the very least, not representative of the coffee itself. The first sip is creamy mint goodness. The sugary vanilla of the oak milk works well with a strong mint undercurrent that slides under the strong roasted notes of Death Wish.
As you'd expect, it's got a bit of a Christmas vibe that makes me regret not brewing this at 6 a.m. December 25 after my daughter wakes up and loses her mind. It's sweet with just enough of a minty kick at the end to snap off each sip satisfyingly. It's not overbearingly rich, with the chocolate and mint balanced just enough against your traditional coffee flavors for everything to work without driving you into taste bud fatigue.
It may be the best flavored coffee I've ever had.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I'm drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That's the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm's. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Death Wish coffee over a cold can of Hamm's?
These two probably will never meet, barring a 6 a.m. wakeup before the Indy 500. But the heights of Death Wish and its mastery of bold flavored coffees are a godsend for someone like me, who likes coffee but doesn't appreciate it on its own. The blueberry and peppermint? Oh, friends, they are wonderful.
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