Giv­en the pas­sion of cer­tain Wel­ling­tonis­tas for all things cof­fee, and the obses­sion of oth­ers for cock­tails, it was nev­er going to be hard to tempt us to the launch of a new artis­an cof­fee liqueur. Add a label fea­tur­ing an anthro­po­morph­ised fox inspired by the Wildean dandy Lord Henry Wot­ton, and throw the party at one of our reg­u­lar enabling holes, and it’s no sur­prise that we were scrab­bling over the few invit­a­tions on offer.

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Made by a former Wel­ling­to­ni­an in Duned­in with what sounds like an obsess­ive atten­tion to roast­ing detail, Quick Brown Fox is def­in­itely not the sweet brown gloop that most of us asso­ci­ate with cof­fee liqueurs. It really does taste like mildly sweetened good cof­fee, with a subtle cin­na­mon tinge that adds com­plex­ity rather than dom­in­at­ing. It’s enjoy­able straight, but some of us had our first intro­duc­tion to it at Hooch via the Foxy Man­hat­tan, where its pleas­ant bit­ter­ness beau­ti­fully com­ple­ments the clas­sic Man­hat­tan fla­vours.

A few of the more ded­ic­ated Wel­ling­tonis­tas had also spent some time at the bar assist­ing Jenny with the devel­op­ment of the cock­tail that became the “Little Fen­necs”. You know, for sci­ence.

20120720-071838.jpg The Little Fen­necs is a cous­in of the Old Fash­ioned, with rais­ins muddled in QBF instead of sug­ar syr­up, and Jenny’s ori­gin­al recipe used cognac as the base spir­it. Unfor­tu­nately, the strong fla­vours of the Quick Brown Fox and the orange zest swamped it. The Wel­ling­tonista’s ded­ic­ated team of cock­tail experts nobly worked their way through a shelf and a half of spir­its look­ing for some­thing that could stand up to the QBF before someone had the bril­liant idea of try­ing spiced rum. We heart­ily recom­mend that you get down to Hooch and try the res­ult. It’s really quite some­thing. The kick of the rum mixes well with the cof­fee fla­vours and cre­ates a pleas­ant sip­ping cock­tail that suc­cess­fully avoids the sweet, innoc­u­ous oh-no-I’ve-had-how-many quaf­fabil­ity that you often find with Old Fash­ioned vari­ations.

As well as the above, the list at the launch fea­tured the Fly­ing Fox, which sur­pris­ingly com­bined the cof­fee liqueur with apricot brandy, basil, grapefruit and ginger beer. It was as refresh­ing as the sum­mery ingredi­ents would sug­gest, and while there was no real cof­fee fla­vour, the Quick Brown Fox com­bined with the ginger and apricot to pro­duce an appeal­ing bis­cu­ity, if not but­tery, base. The fourth cock­tail on the list, the White Vel­vet, was rather too creamy and vanilla for our tastes (though there are rumours that some of us may have messily exper­i­mented with QBF in com­bin­a­tion with Kraken rum and chocol­ate chilli ice cream, but if the cock­tail police ask, it nev­er happened, right?)

But behind every exquis­ite thing that exis­ted, there was some­thing tra­gic. Call us spoiled brats if you will, and we’re prob­ably the first to acknow­ledge that yes, we are, but if a beau­ti­fully designed invit­a­tion says “join us for drinks, nibbles and cock­tails”, we’re going to show up ima­gin­ing that those drinks, nibbles and cock­tails will be provided for free, as part of the hos­pit­al­ity. It was some­thing of an unpleas­ant sur­prise, then, to find a cock­tail list which told us the price of everything and the value of noth­ing, and with no sign of the prom­ised nibbles (or, in fact, any­one not either a Wel­ling­tonista or a friend-of-the-Wel­ling­tonista) until well into the event. The launch was pleas­ant enough in the end, and Quick Brown Fox has found its way into many of our new favour­ite cock­tails, but the over­prom­ising left a touch of bit­ter­ness that can’t be put down to the cof­fee.

Pho­tos by our own Greg Bod­nar.