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.
Onyx Coffee Lab now has five locations across Northwest Arkansas and has developed unique menus for each cafe’s Modbar. Whether it’s the expansive coffee bar at their Rogers HQ or the bakery and breakfast-focused Hail Fellow, Well Met, Onyx is dedicated to delivering unique experiences that draw customers to all their different shops. And behind those unique Destination Drink menus? Head of R&D and Public Education Vanessa DeGraffenried. You can read more about how Vanessa designs each cafe menu to reflect its community below.
What is your history with signature coffee drinks?
Before I started working in coffee, I always wanted to be in coffee shops, but I didn’t necessarily know what I wanted to drink. I would always start with a signature drink or something that the barista told me was specific to their store and I couldn’t miss. A decade later, that hasn’t changed. I love to try something new or something that I can’t get at another shop; getting to enjoy someone’s creativity with coffee has always been a treat, and you’ll often find me with 2 to 3 drinks when visiting somewhere new.
In your opinion, what role do signature drinks play in a café?
I think that signature drinks are for everyone! They are fun for cafe staff to come up with and test, and they are great beginner-friendly options for new coffee drinkers and cafe patrons while also offering something fun and new for regulars to try. Signature drinks are a way to tell a story, and having a dedicated space on a menu for them, I believe, is a gift for baristas and guests alike.
How do you design signature beverages for different locations?
When coming up with different drinks for different locations, I want to think about several things, starting big and working my way into the details from there. I will ask myself, “What do guests at this location want?” “What is this space designed and staffed for to execute well?” “What extra tools and ingredients does this require?” “What story does this drink tell?”
From there, I’ll use my running list of ideas to come up with possible flavor combinations, the way a drink looks, and what my hope is for the end result. Go through some research & development and make plenty of bad drinks and weird sauces and syrups along with the good. From that point, it’s a lot of trial and error, testing and tasting until we figure out what tastes good, looks good, is something that people want to drink and try, something that pairs well with our seasonal pastries and food, and highlights our coffee and training our amazing barista staff to execute it well!
What is the most important thing to consider when designing a new signature coffee drink?
It’s tricky to just choose one thing as being the most important! So, I’m going to break the rules a bit and give two. I would say that the most important thing to consider is answering the questions, “Does this drink highlight what we are doing at Onyx well, and does it sound enticing?” I want baristas and our guests to want to try the signature drinks, to try something that excites them but doesn’t scare them off. No drink is going to be everyone’s favorite, but if we can create something that sounds intriguing and gets guests to step out of their comfort zone a bit, it’s doing the job that a signature coffee drink should do. And it should go without saying, but I’ll say it – I want anything we make at Onyx to hold up to the standard we have, to not settle for good enough, to be an amazing final product with great ingredients, great coffee, and made by our killer staff.
What is your current favorite signature coffee drink to make?
On our fall menu at Onyx, we currently have a Tamarind Cider Soda that I love to make. It’s a layered drink over ice that is perfect for the NW Arkansas Fall weather (it’s still 89* here; please send cold air ASAP). The drink starts with a house-made tamarind and apple cider syrup, we add in ice and sparkling water and then layer on a few ounces of our Southern Weather Nitro Cold Brew. The drink is finished by topping it with smoke, letting apple wood smoke sit on top of the beverage, and removing the cover right before service.
How specific is each signature drink recipe to each coffee?
The coffee itself plays a massive role in each drink it’s highlighted in! When drinking a beverage, I want to be able to taste not only the final product but also highlight the quality of each specific ingredient that goes into the final product. The final beverage is simply the sum of its parts, and if the coffee, the best ingredient in anything, isn’t thought through in terms of how it will complement or highlight the drink, it can become more muddled instead of standing out.
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