Destination Drinks are any specialty or signature beverage that turns a cafe into a destination. Whether it’s a chilled lemonade for summer or an autumnal latte for the fall, these drinks help drive new customer traffic and create new regulars.
Morgan Eckroth is best known as the creative mind behind the coffee channel MorganDrinksCoffee, which has over 8 million followers between Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. They’re also the Content Marketing Strategist at Onyx Coffee Lab, and in 2022, became the United States Barista Champion. Between creating unique recipes on their website, crafting championship signature beverages, and building recipes for cafés, Morgan has a lot of great insights into what makes a Destination Drink work.
Morgan’s recipe for Carmilla’s Kiss is available on their website.
What’s the most important thing you consider when designing a new signature drink for a café?
I like to initially focus on what the guest’s experience with the drink will be and decide what key feelings I want it to elicit. Is the drink warming and comforting? Tropical and refreshing? Or perhaps the focal point is the coffee that’s being used in it, rather than the added ingredients.
How does designing a signature drink for the United States Barista Championship differ from designing a drink for a coffee bar?
So, so many differences! I think the primary one is the consideration of replicability and scaling. In a cafe, your signature drinks need to fit into a barista’s workflow without major disruption while also being cost-effective for both you and your guest. In competition, the sky’s the limit. You’re able to throw practicality and COGS to the wind. Barista competition signature drinks are often highly experimental and impractical for traditional cafes due to them being built to showcase rare and unusual coffees. A barista competitor only has to make a drink perfectly four times on stage, while a barista behind a bar has to make a drink perfectly hundreds of times.
What are some go-to ingredients for signature drinks you like keeping on hand?
I keep a myriad of sugars, spices, and juices on hand at all times. Infused syrups are one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to add complexity to a drink, so that’s usually where I’ll start. I also keep textural components in stock as well. Emulsifiers, dairy, lecithins, gas, etc. Most of all, I like to make drinks with fresh seasonal ingredients so my lab’s fridge is always a rotating selection of whatever I’ve found at the market or co-op that week.
How do you consider customer preferences when designing a café signature drink?
I like to look at what has already been established with the coffee program. Looking at the types of coffees that are selling well can be a great indicator on how exploratory a signature menu can be and how receptive the customer base will be towards them.
How do you match different coffees to different drink recipes?
I start thinking about what type of coffee I want to use in a drink as soon as I start conceiving it. When treating coffee like its own unique ingredient, you have to think about it in terms of how its flavors will pair with whatever else you’re using. For example, a bright and tropical drink is going to be washed out by a dark, chocolate-forward coffee. Something lighter, perhaps a natural, will lend itself far more cohesively to the established flavor profile. There has to be a sort of flow and melody created in your drink, the wrong coffee can easily cause it to be thrown out of balance.
What’s your favorite signature drink to make right now?
One of my recent favorites is a little cocktail-inspired beverage that I cheekily dubbed Carmilla’s Kiss. It’s a shaken drink that uses cold brew, blackberries, basil, and pineapple juice to make something that’s bright, frothy, and super crushable.
What’s one mistake you’ve made when designing a recipe that other people can avoid?
Overcomplicating your drink for the sake of overcomplicating it. I still fall prey to this trap and often have to remind myself that the ultimate goal of a drink is to be delicious. If I’ve accomplished that, even if it feels too simple, then what am I worrying about?
As a customer, what’s the one signature drink you remember that made you want to return to a café?
Easy question because I dream about this one drink every day. It’s the Morning Show from Dayglow Coffee and features distilled coffee, orange juice, passionfruit, and condensed coconut.
Visit MorganDrinksCoffee on Instagram, on TikTok, and on YouTube.
