There are few things I look forward to in the summer more than iced coffee. One of my favorite ways to kick off a weekend is go for a decently long run (at least five miles) and then hit up a good coffee shop for a large iced coffee.

My biggest pet peeve is a cafe that doesn’t take the time to make iced coffee correctly. If I see you pour hot coffee in my cup with ice, I probably won’t say anything, but I’ll also cross you off my coffee shop list.

As with so many things, it’s so much easier to just make it at home rather than rely on the luck of the draw to get a good cup. Recently I’ve been experimenting with adding some whole spices to the coffee as it steeps.

The results are so delicious. The finished cup ends up being pretty mild due to a slow steeping process. It’s great black, but you can also add a little cream or sugar to it if that’s your thing!

However you like it, make a batch of it pronto!

Iced Spiced Coffee

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Author: Nick Evans
Servings: 4 Servings
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Iced spiced coffee is cold brewed with whole spices and easy to make at home. A great way to beat the summer heat!

Ingredients 

  • ½ cup coarse ground coffee
  • 4 cups room temp water
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 whole nutmeg, smashed
  • Milk or cream, for serving
  • Honey or sugar, for serving

Instructions

  • Roughly grind coffee. Use a mallet to lightly smash cinnamon stick and whole nutmeg.
  • In a large container, add coffee and spices and room temperature or slightly warm water. Stir together and Let steep for at least 4 hours or ideally overnight.
  • Strain coffee using a french press or letting it drain through a filter.
  • Pour coffee over ice and add some sweetener and/or cream or milk if you want. It’s great black also though!
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: American

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Iced Spiced Coffee

The key to making sure the coffee isn’t over-powered by the spices is to use whole spices. If you’re a nutmeg fan, you can toss in all those halves of nutmeg that you have from grating it in things.

Iced spiced coffee spices
Whole business

Again, it’s seriously worth buying whole spices just for this. It’ll cost you a few bucks for a big thing of cinnamon and nutmeg.

If you would like to defy me and use ground spices, use a very small amount. Just a pinch would have the same effect, but I think it would probably still be a bit too much because you wouldn’t be able to filter out the ground spices.

With whole spices though, grind up the coffee and roughly smash the cinnamon and nutmeg. I just use a kitchen mallet and give them a whack!

Ground coffee for iced spiced coffee.
Smashed and ground.

Add four cups of water to the mix. Use room temperature or slightly warm water and stir it all together. If you use hot water, it’ll become a bit bitter from the spices. Using cold water and time will result in a super-smooth cup.

Iced spiced coffee steeping.
Slow and steady.

This will need to steep for at least four hours so it’s not a spur-of-the-moment thing, for sure.

The best way to handle it is just to make a batch and let it sit overnight in the fridge.

Then you can use a french press to strain the coffee or just pour it through a normal coffee filter.

Iced Spiced coffee pressed.
Pressed.

Like I said, it’s totally refreshing without anything else, but I do like a little milk in mine.

Personally, I recommend making a double batch of the stuff and keeping it in the fridge for the week! Then you can avoid the iced coffee lottery all together!

Iced Spiced Coffee: The thing you need to beat the summer heat this year. Make a big batch of it and take it easy.