One of the my favorite parts of Mustachianism is MMM's occasional emphasis on what incredible luxury we have in our lives. MMM and I share an appreciation for delicious, fancy coffeehouse style drinks, and a disdain for wasteful spending. At this point, you may be asking: how can you drink more delicious, gourmet coffeehouse drinks and cultivate some more luxury in your day while you're at it? Luckily, it's really simple. Grab your plastic tumbler, your smooth jazz, your dim mood lighting, and your scones!
Hot coffee drinksWhat you really want for the hot coffee drinks is an espresso making device of some sort. We have the ubiquitous
moka pot here, but if you want to look like a barista you'll need something more like
this, which is still cheap. You'll also need finely-ground coffee. Our grocery store is located in the nicest neighborhood of town (alternately, "we ignore all the grocery shops closer to us than the nicest one in town"), and they roast and grind coffee in the store, so it's simple to get coffee blend x + flavoring y + grind z, and it doesn't even change the price. If you grind your own coffee, just grind it finer. If you fit in neither of those groups, you can either buy espresso-ground coffee, or make regular coffee the boring way, and just make sure to make it extra strong.
To get a delicious hot coffee drink, take espresso and add things to it. The stuff is so magical, you'll end up okay in the end if you choose anything remotely normal. An americano is espresso and hot water; a latte macchiato is foamed milk and espresso, with bonus points if you go all bartender-style and separate the layers by pouring the espresso onto the back of a spoon (oh, and to get foamed milk you'll want
one of these). For seasonal goodness, google "[seasonal craving] syrup" or "[seasonal craving] creamer", and you'll find crazy delicious recipes like
vanilla syrup and
pumpkin spice creamer. Throw sweetened condensed milk in black coffee or an american coffee for a vietnamese coffee. The list goes on...
When you take a sip of your first homemade pumpkin spice americano, that sweet foam mustache you're left with is the taste of retirement. Really.
Cold coffee drinksI like the Pioneer Woman's
iced coffee recipe, but I never make a full batch of it. As far as coffee goes (the brown solid input to the recipe, that is), when it's iced there's less acidity, so bad coffee tastes good and good coffee tastes great. That old Maxwell house you've got works fine. If you're buying coffee anyway, though, I swear by Costco's Kirkland Signature coffee. It's truly wonderful brewed hot, and it's even better cold brewed. As far as the more complicated drinks:
You can
make a frappucino with things you have on hand, plus a few cents of the greatest chemical additives known to all of food science. Leave out the Xanthan gum and it'll still be good, I promise. Soy milk or almond milk are magical in cold-brewed iced coffee. You can make a coffee protein shake with yogurt, protein powder, and iced coffee, I think-- I'm still working on a recipe that's tolerable the whole way through the 24oz plastic tumbler I take it to school in.
Iced teaIf you drink iced tea like it's going out of style, an
iced tea maker can be worth the investment; be sure to check thrift stores and Craigslist first, though. I use mine several times a week, and tea bags are like $2 for 24qts worth. Maybe it's stupid, because it could probably be made without a unitasking appliance, but there comes a point at which the volume makes it worthwhile.
You can make syrups for tea with little to no effort, and they make sweet tea a little more interesting--basil is really good and also usable in cocktails, and mint and lemon are other obvious choices. But there's an even cooler idea, one so stupidly obvious I shouldn't have to share it, but I drank 2+ gallons of iced tea a week for years before I ever thought of doing it. You can get big old quart containers of fruit nectar (like
this guy) at Mexican grocery stores for a pittance... we get 4-6 $2.50 containers when we go. Two ounces of one is enough to make a kinda sweet and very fruity 24 oz iced tea. I drink like three of these a day lately, and it helps me stay hydrated and completely kills my desire for Starbucks and its ilk.
Postscript: All credit goes to SWMBO for the espresso maker, wand-style milk frother, iced coffee protein shake idea, nectar in iced tea, and my americano/macchiato addiction.