Well, it’s hotter than a two dollar pistol here in the Ozarks, and it’s time for cold drink season at the Dancing Mule. Fortunately, the Mule has several excellent options for your hot weather coffee needs. The first option is: Don’t be a wimp, just drink it hot like a real man or woman. There is nothing like a hot latte or cup of coffee to stoke your internal fire on a hot day.
If you are the sensible type who likes to adapt your habits to suit the changing temperature, you can try our many other options like iced coffee, iced lattes, frappes, crèmes, fruit smoothies, iced tea, Italian sodas, iced chai, or even a glass of ice water, bottled water, or a bottle of Coke or Diet Coke. We even have chilled juice boxes for the young ones or the young at heart. Over half of our menu consists of cold drinks, and we can make anything iced or blended that we can make hot.
What if you aren’t familiar with all the cool coffee shop lingo or you are just confused because different places call the same thing a different name? Don’t fret. We have some definitions and explanations that should clear up the confusion. While we’re at it, we’ll tell you why the cold Mule drinks are better than the corporate chains. Remember, friends don’t let friends drink corporate coffee.
Iced Coffee –This one is pretty simple—it’s just coffee poured over ice. Many people add a dash of cream or some sugar to suit their taste, but it tastes great without anything added. Some of the corporate chains have corrupted the name of this drink by really serving an iced latte with a flavoring and calling it iced coffee.
At the Mule our iced coffee is cold brewed and has a smooth rich and chocolaty flavor. We use the cold brewing method because pouring hot coffee over ice can make it bitter and it melts your ice and then you have diluted iced coffee. We use five pounds of coarse ground coffee and pour five gallons of filtered water over it and let it brew for 18 hours. The filtered water we use is from our Cirqua reverse osmosis filter system. Good water makes better coffee because coffee is approximately 98.5% water. The longer brewing time is necessary because we aren’t using hot water to speed up the extraction of the good stuff from the coffee. The cold brewed concentrate is then chilled and kept refrigerated. A batch of cold brewed coffee only stays around a day or so during the summer at the Mule, but if refrigerated it is good for several weeks.
Iced Latte – In our case, an iced latte is made with cold brewed coffee concentrate mixed with milk (skim, 2%, whole, or half and half). If you want to add flavoring an iced latte is a better choice than iced coffee. We can add any of our wide selection of flavored syrups or sauces to an iced latte. We use the cold brewed coffee concentrate instead of hot espresso because espresso can be bitter when chilled too fast over ice. We will make your iced latte with hot shots if you prefer the stronger coffee flavor. We make the iced honey latte with hot espresso shots because it is difficult to mix honey with cold coffee.
Frappe – The frappe is a blended coffee drink. We use a non-dairy base, ice (our ice is made from filtered water), cold brewed coffee, add a flavoring of your choice and blend until smooth. We can top with whip cream (our whip cream is made at the Mule) or use sugar free syrups or sauces to go the other direction and lower your calorie and sugar count. If you are really watching calories, an iced latte with skim milk or an iced coffee are probably a better choice. Our frappes are not made from a pre-packaged mix. They are better because we use our cold brewed coffee and are made to order the way you want it. We encourage custom orders, and we want you to ask questions so we can make you something you will really enjoy.
Crème – Crème’s are frappes without the coffee. The fruit flavors are great for a crème, and it is fun to experiment with different flavor combinations. Crème’s are very sweet and have a milk shake like consistency.
Smoothies – Our smoothies are a fruit puree and we have Strawberry, Mango, Wildberry, APB (Acai, Pomegranate, and Blueberry), Mango, and Strawberry Banana. Our smoothies are from Jet and have a green tea base although they taste like fruit and not the green tea base. We can combine flavors to create a custom smoothie.
Italian Sodas – They are a flavoring combined with soda water and ice. The fruit flavors generally work better in an Italian soda. Many of our customers like to experiment with Italian sodas and combine flavors to create your favorite.
Iced Tea – We use Harney and Sons Black tea for our sweet and unsweet iced tea and, of course, filtered water. Our iced tea is kept refrigerated and chilled so it doesn’t melt your ice. We can also ice any of our nine varieties of Harney and Sons if you have a few minutes to wait for us to brew it for you.
Iced Chai – Our iced chai latte is made with Oregon Chai concentrate mixed with milk of your choice and poured over ice. We have an extra spicy chai for the adventurous who like a stronger flavor. We can also make a chai frappe if you prefer a blended drink.
Come by and pick one of the options above to cool down on a hot day. We look forward to serving you your new favorite cold drink at Dancing Mule soon.
