Glitter Cat Coffee in Good Spirits Bootcamp
Jayy Terrell prepares coffee-based cocktails in preparation for the SCA Coffee In Good Spirits (CIGS) competition. By Jayy Terrell
I applied to the Glitter Cat Coffee in Good Spirits (CIGS) Boot Camp in hopes of continuing to try some new things in coffee, while also leaning in more closely to the queer and queer-adjacent specialty coffee community. The competition route has never been on my proverbial list, but when the opportunity arose, I thought “Why not!?” So last weekend, I packed my things and traveled to Portland, Oregon, to meet with a cohort of seven other Cats from all over the country.
We began every morning of Bootcamp around 8 a.m. with coffee and breakfast, before breaking away for in-depth lectures on the rules, tools and presentation aspects of the Special Coffee Association (SCA) competition. Glitter Cat brought some of the fiercest competitors (and winners) from previous years to coach and help guide us toward our goal of the weekend: presenting a 10-minute routine that highlighted two coffee cocktails, one hot and one cold.
After selecting the coffee that would serve as the base of our coffee cocktails, from a plethora of roasted coffees from roasters across the nation, we were tasked with creating two visually engaging drinks. These drinks were to incorporate the unique flavors of our chosen coffees, pair well with the other ingredients in our recipes, and set the scene for our presentations — which would ideally tell an engaging story and taste great!
The selection process for the coffee consisted of popping a balloon filled with glitter and shimmer and a tiny sliver of paper, on which a coffee name was written. I truly believe I got the wildest, most exciting and delicious coffee in attendance — an anaerobic Colombian coffee roasted by Elixr. This made the task of creating these beverages somehow easier AND more difficult for me! In true Jayy fashion, I was a tad ambitious and wacky with the planning and ended up with two recipes: One hot drink that was quite tasty, and one cold drink that … could use some work.
Jayy’s very unusual cold cocktail was “a sort of deconstructed guacamole.”I don’t want to give too much away, as I may still use this routine for the actual competition, but the scene I set was one that incorporated my journey from the South — where the freshest and healthiest options are not always readily available and where, for better or worse, the palette tends to favor sweet, creamy, and comforting — to the West Coast, where the daily reality of fresh, natural ingredients helped open me up to brighter, more titillating flavors.
My hot cocktail — which included espresso, a Southern peach tea, hazelnut liqueur, Tito’s vodka (made in Texas, my home state) and rosewater bitters — was a nice dessert cocktail, meant to warm and comfort from the inside out.
My cold cocktail, a sort of deconstructed guacamole, and a riff on a Bloody Maria, was truly as absurd as it sounds. It is part Chemex preparation, part mezcal, plus cane syrup and whipped avocado foam (which turned out really well), garnished with serrano pepper and cilantro and an ancho chili powder and brown sugar rim.
The judges seemed to really enjoy my routine, and even loved the hot drink, while offering copious notes on how to revise and elevate both the presentation and the flavor of the cold drink.
All in all, the weekend was an amazing opportunity for us to further build up this community, learn from the best in the game and prepare to venture forth and keep challenging the status quo in specialty coffee.
A huge thank you to GCB for all the time, energy, resources and love they put into this Bootcamp and all the others! And, a thousand thank you’s to Chelsey Walker-Watson and Susan Heller Evenson from Atlas Coffee Importers; Veronica Grimm and Eric Grimm of Glitter Cat Barista, and to each of the amazing Bootcamp coaches — Amanda Whitt, Matt Foster and Alex Hager — for pouring into us all weekend long! •
— Jayy Terrell (they/them) can be reached at jay.terrell@nkg.coffee.