Treat your senses to the unrivalled taste, smoothness, and body of this award-winning artisanal coffee-infused spirit—Nocturne Noir.
Nocturne Noir is an enchanting blend of the finest European eau de vie aged with premium quality single-origin Arabica coffee beans straight from the highlands of Colombia.
The eau de vie is composed of barley, wheat, and rye, which have been distilled five times in a copper still and triple filtered with basalt lava rocks and quartz sand to remove any impurities. These iconic grains treat you to an exciting mouthfeel with deeply satisfying, complex flavours. The spirit is then aged with coffee beans that have been carefully handpicked so only the ripe ones are used to gently coax out the desirable notes and flavours.
The drink is then filtered—without any chill filtration—and bottled just for you.
To ensure the purest taste, each bottle contains only natural ingredients with no added sugar, colouring, flavouring, or additives. Let yourself feast upon the delightful combination of hints of vanilla, toffee, chocolate, and butterscotch as well as a slight creamy taste that’s also mildly sweet.
Your enjoyment of the drink is enhanced with a lovely sense of an alert-high, thanks to the natural source of caffeine from the Colombian coffee beans.
Nocturne Noir is best enjoyed chilled neat, in cocktails, or on the rocks. It pairs well with European and Japanese cuisines, acting as the perfect digestif to cap off your meal.
Standing the test of time, Nocturne Noir embodies the ultimate coffee spirit.
Base spirit: Single source wheat, barley, and rye
Infusion: Aged with single-origin "cherry-picked" Colombian Arabica coffee beans
Distillation: 5 times distilled in copper stills
Filtration: Non-chilled triple filtered through basalt lava rock and quartz sand
Alcohol: 38% vol
Calories per serving (30ml): 65 Calories
Tasting Notes: Hints of vanilla, toffee, almonds, amaretto, and hazlenut, slightly creamy and mildly sweet
Temperature: Served neat at between 1-5°C
Best served with: Milk chocolate, Italian desserts such as tiramisu, cheeses, and vanilla ice-cream
Highlights: Pure and natural with NO added sugar, flavouring, colouring, or additives
Women’s Wine & Spirits Awards 2021
Gold Medal
Las Vegas Spirits Awards 2020
Platinum Medal
World Spirits
Competition 2020
Gold Medal
World Spirits
Competition 2019
Gold Medal
Ultimate Spirits Challenge 2020
84 points
China Wine & Spirits Award 2020
Gold Medal
“Velvety mouth with natural style coffee tones evenly balanced through to lusciously long roasted finish.”
The Making
of Nocturne Noir
Two essential ingredients that make up Nocturne Noir are the single-origin Arabica coffee beans and the triple-grain eau de vie. We take great care in choosing only the finest of these ingredients to serve you our unique coffee spirit.
Let us walk you through our process.
Colombian Arabica Coffee Beans
Why Arabica?
Coffee lovers may be familiar with the two types of coffee bean commonly grown for commercial consumption: Arabica and Robusta.
There are many key differences between the two, from environment—Arabica grows well in higher altitudes while Robusta thrives in lower altitudes—to caffeine content—Robusta packs more caffeine than Arabica.
Perhaps the most noticeable difference is their taste. Arabica beans tend to be slightly sweeter and softer, with much more depth and a varied expression of flavours. In contrast, Robusta bean tends to have a stronger, harsher, and more bitter taste. Because of this, most specialty coffee shops use Arabica beans exclusively, only adding Robusta in certain espresso blends for the caffeine boost.
While both beans definitely have their own unique charms, we found after numerous tastings that Arabica coffee beans pair much better with our European eau de vie. Besides its smooth taste and aroma, Arabica’s mild caffeine content gives the right boost in alertness and energy to balance out the sedative effects of alcohol.
Why Colombia?
Colombia’s ideal combination of mountainous terrain and mild climate makes it the best place to grow some of the world’s best coffee. Coffee in Colombia is grown in rich volcanic soil in elevations between 4,000 to 6,000 feet. Generally speaking, the higher the altitude, the better the taste of the bean.
The Colombian coffee berries are washed to help purify and reduce the acidity of the beans. As a result, they have a stronger aroma but lower caffeine content compared to Robusta.
It's not just the geography, the climate, and the wash that make Colombian coffee beans some of the best in the world. A huge factor to their beans’ superior quality is the careful harvesting process, which is entirely done by hand.
Coffee Berries
Picked at their Peak
The best and sweetest coffee beans are the ones picked at their peak ripeness.
However, the berries don’t ripen simultaneously. As the fruit matures, it goes from green to yellow, then gradually to a deep red, almost purplish colour to signal its ripeness. When they’re not picked, these fruits begin to turn brown and start to ferment. These overly ripe coffee berries result in a sour-tasting coffee with an unpleasant aroma.
Picking coffee berries at the peak of their ripeness, not before and definitely not after, is the prerequisite for excellent coffee. And this task is neither easy nor cheap.
The making of Nocturne Noir requires the best Arabica beans be picked at the epitome of their ripeness. This ensures the best possible taste and aroma, capturing the most of that natural mild sweetness that pairs so well with the spirit.
Triple-Grain Eau de Vie
What are the Three Grains?
For our premium coffee spirit, we only use the finest European eau de vie composed of three iconic grains: wheat, barley, and rye. These three grains were chosen for their exciting mouthfeel and deeply satisfying, complex flavours.
The barley contributes a roasty, nutty toffee profile, while the rye adds a clean, slightly sweet note with some mild spiciness. To round it all off, the wheat balances everything out with a light, crisp, smooth citrus earthy taste.
A good eau de vie is the result of the quality of the ingredients used. We use only the best grains, letting our spirit retain their fine qualities and provide a more exciting drink.
The distillation process
There’s a common misconception that the more times you distil the spirit, the better it becomes. In reality, a spirit that needs to be refined over 20 times to be drinkable probably needs it due to sub-par raw ingredients.
At Nocturne Noir, we believe that quality ingredients beget a quality drink. As such, we’ve found that five times distillation with the iconic copper stills is more than enough to ensure the purity of the spirit, all while allowing the flavours to best express themselves.
The filtration process
Unlike the typical filtration process, which uses activated charcoal to remove impurities, our spirit undergoes triple filtration using basalt lava rocks and quartz sand.
This is because the combination of the stringent quality controls of our mountain spring water, pumps, and storage make filtering using activated charcoal unnecessary. A charcoal filter would also strip away much of the taste characteristics of a naturally endowed spirit.
Our filtration process begins with the first pass through a layer of ultra-fine quartz sand. The second pass is through layers of basalt lava rocks which not only further filters the distillate but endows it with natural minerals vital to the taste and body. Completing the process is the final filtration via another layer of ultra-fine quartz sand.
The Aging Process
After the distillation and filtration processes, we now have the purest eau de vie, which we then age with our top-grade single-origin Arabica coffee beans.
This aging process is done under very special conditions at our winery in order to gently coax out the delicate notes and flavours from the coffee beans.
Each batch of Nocturne Noir is aged by taste, and as such, we don’t put an age statement on our bottles. Once the spirit reaches perfection, it is filtered once again—without any chill filtration—and bottled with no added flavourings, colourings, or additives.
All this means that every bottle of Nocturne Noir provides the purest taste from premium ingredients all carefully processed so that only the finest coffee spirit graces your palate.
Nocturne Noir
The evolution of coffee and alcohol
Even though coffee is best known as the beverage to help you start the day and alcohol as the drink to cap off a long one, these two together have actually been a popular concoction for centuries. One reason for this popular match may be due to the stimulant properties of caffeine offsetting the sedative effects of alcohol, leaving instead a pleasant mix of alertness and relaxation.
It’s said that as early as 1795, the Swedes were mixing vodka and coffee, although the practice of combining coffee with wine can go as far back as 800 A.D. Nowadays, one of the best known mix of coffee and alcohol is the Irish Coffee, which had its start in the 1940s when a chef at Foynes Airport in Ireland served up coffee and whisky to passengers from a rerouted flight.
Nocturne Noir adds to this illustrious history of coffee spirits with our own unique process that marries the best of what coffee and alcohol have to offer.
By aging the premium quality European triple-grain eau de vie with the best “cherry-picked” Colombian Arabica coffee beans, we’ve created a unique coffee spirit of unparalleled smoothness, flavour, and body.
The Unique Qualities of Nocturne Noir
When you drink Nocturne Noir, you don’t just treat yourself to a feast of subtle flavours with tantalizing hints of vanilla, toffee, almonds, amaretto, and hazelnut. You also get to enjoy several positive effects on your body.
With Nocturne Noir’s five times distillation and triple filtration with basalt lava rocks and quartz sand, you’re treated to a spirit with unprecedented levels of purity, free from toxins and additives.
Please be advised that pregnant women or people who have a medical or psychological condition that precludes alcohol use should still refrain from indulging in beverages with alcohol content. As for the rest, moderation is key.
Balances Out Depressant
Effects of Alcohol
While typical alcoholic drinks have a sedative effect promoting relaxation and uninhibition, Nocturne Noir offers a jolt of caffeine to go along with its spirit for a heightened experience. The premium Colombian Arabica coffee beans infused in our European eau de vie give you a sense of energy, alertness, and vigour.
This mild natural source of caffeine enhances the experience of the drink with a pleasant alert-high, a feature not many spirits can achieve without the use of artificial additives, stimulants, flavourings, or sugar.
General
Health Benefits
Drinking alcoholic beverages in moderation has been associated with more general health benefits. These include increased cardiovascular health, fewer acute hospitalizations, a decreased risk of stroke, Alzheimer's, and type-2 diabetes, and lowered mortality compared to those who don't drink alcohol. In fact, abstainers who begin drinking moderately may experience positive changes in their health.
In particular, Nocturne Noir is known to also aid with digestion, with some of our fans drinking it regularly as an aperitif and digestif.
Helps
Reduce Stress
While you may already be familiar with the relaxant effect of alcoholic drinks, making Nocturne Noir your regular drink may provide a scientifically measurable benefit in the form of stress reduction. According to a 1997 study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, clear distilled spirits, such as vodka and gin, have been found to reduce stress more effectively than the alcohol-equivalent of red wine.
Contains Lower Calories
Than Most Alcoholic Drinks
Because Nocturne Noir is free from added sugar, colouring, flavouring, and other enhancers, it’s become a favourite among health and weight-conscious drinkers. Best enjoyed neat, our unique blend has roughly 67 calories per ounce, one of the lowest in caloric rating among alcoholic drinks.
In fact, Nocturne Noir can be incorporated in low-calorie meals or cocktails. For those looking to reduce their weight, Nocturne Noir also offers psychophysical appetite satiation, helping you lessen the urge to eat more than you need to.
