The Future - Sweet Berry Wine

The Future has been a beloved staple on our year-round menu for quite awhile now. With it, we have been able to showcase excellence in processing techniques, particularly in regard to anaerobic and co-fermentation endeavors.. Our goal with each of these unique blends is to elevate flavor as the guiding principle for each creation.

From 2007-2010, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim spent their evenings making night owls laugh and cringe on their sketch comedy series, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, which was part of the long running nighttime programming block, Adult Swim. On it, they featured several regular guests for their parody skits, including actor John C. Reilly as faux news correspondent, Dr. Steve Brule. 

One such skit came barreling back to our memories the moment we sipped this blend, and it consequently inspired the coffee's name. In it, John C. Reilly's character is reporting from wine country, where he has consumed entirely too much sweet wine ahead of filming. The interchange that's living rent-free in our heads (and coming soon to yours!) goes like this: 

News anchor: Steve, what kind of wine is that you're drinking? I can't see, hon. 

Steve (in a slurred voice): Sweetberry winneeee!!!

(to get the full experience, tune in at :45 here.)

Okay, what really inspired this blend - besides, of course, the comedic genius of John C. Reilly - is our love of big, fruity, sweet flavors... and also our unapologetic tendency to embrace a little funk. Sipping this coffee, we can't help but remember that one time we tried a wine slushie at Duplin (and thoroughly enjoyed it). Fans of Deana Carter's 1996 debut single will rejoice.

To create a blend worthy of Dr. Steve Brule's intoxicated exclamation, we sought out coffees that were heavy on both fruit and fermentation impact. We landed on two co-fermented coffees from Colombia (no surprise there) and one naturally-processed lot from Guji:

50% Ture Waji (Shoondhisa) - Natural (Guji, Oromia, Ethiopia)

25% Sebastian Ramirez - Red Fruits (Quindio, Colombia)

25% Jairo Arcila - Mixed Berry (Armenia, Quindio, Colombia)

There are a few northern folks at our table who are, for better or worse, unfamiliar with the quintessentially southern tasting experience that is muscadine wine. For them - and perhaps for you - this coffee may not stir up so many feelings of nostalgia and wine headaches as it does for the rest of us (and thankfully, it will not cause the latter). What you need to know is that this coffee, like its namesake, is very big, very sweet, and very boozy. If sweet wine is a foreign concept to you, think instead of sangria, or peach schnapps. That sweetness is rich and decadent, reminding us of blueberry compote. The body is full, and the finish is funky. Perhaps our most ridiculous Future release to-date, this blend invites us to take a page right out of John C. Reilly's playbook - and not take ourselves too seriously.