Wine-infused coffee is officially a thing

It's been two years in the making but it looks like wine and coffee just had a baby. Napa Valley's Molinari Private Reserve and Wild Card Roasters have brought wine-infused coffee beans into the world. We congratulate the proud parents, and coffee shop hipsters everywhere thank them for providing something new to chat about while patrons write screenplays.

Getting wine into a coffee bean isn't easy. First you have to dry roast your bean to dehydrate it fully. Then you soak the thirsty bean in wine to rehydrate it (or as Molinari explains it, their "full-bodied coffee relaxes in a beautiful wine, absorbing the wine's nose and history". But you're not done yet. You've gotta roast the bean again to dry it out and bake that nose and history in. Now you can grind it and brew yourself a satisfying mug of morning mud. The result, it seems, is a cup of coffee with a subtle note of berry. Blueberry to be exact. Which is weird because Molinari's wine, like most, is made the traditional way, with grapes. Huh. I guess berries are tricky like that. And yes, grapes are berries.  I Googled it.

The hybrid beverage may very well be the latest hipster coffee craze to join the ranks of cold brew, rainbow coffee and meringue coffee. Before you distance yourself from coffee hipsters with too confident an eye roll though, note that Canadians emit the brightest coffee love glow, consuming more than 80 other coffee drinking countries. But wine-infused coffee may offer more than just beans with a trendy affectation. A cup of vino/java juice could have you doubling up on the health benefits of two of earth's well-known antioxidant super powers. Red wine and coffee both have tons in the form of polyphenols. Maybe the fad is more akin to bulletproof coffee then (I still don't know if I take mine with one pat of butter or two).  Regardless, if you want to get your lips on some of the grape and bean bevie, you'll have to wait. They're out of stock until further notice. Which will give the company and coffee bloggers everywhere some time to type up what will no doubt be painstakingly detailed tasting notes.

But I kid the hipster. Our coffee love/affliction is unsurprising. It's a drug. And some think it should be classified and controlled as such with at least one doctor suggesting as high as a Schedule I classification (typically reserved for highly dangerous substances like cocaine and heroine). That's unlikely to happen. There'd be riots.

Adding adult grape juice (a depressant) to coffee (a stimulant) may seem like an odd pairing but it's unlikely that you'll get a wine buzz from a soaked bean. Just a little healthy berry hit with your cup of joe. There's always Irish coffee if you need alcohol and caffeine inside you at once. And if you're a purist who worries about mixing taboos of the "grape or grain, but never the twain" variety, don't sweat it. There are no provisos on the pairing of grape and bean. Although I think it may be a sin in the old testament. Check in with your local hipster to find out.