Quick Mason Jar Iced Coffee

I love iced coffee. My iced coffee proclivity is an anomaly because I’m not a daily coffee drinker. When the mercury climbs, though, there’s something about a frothy, sweet, chocolaty , icy coffee that really rings my chimes. I started making my own because the ones sold by most restaurants were too sweet for my tastes, but I continued on the quest for the perfect homemade iced coffee because I’m obsessive. 

As with most things I do, I started out much too complicated and ended up simplifying drastically. 

At first, I brewed massive quantities of paint-stripping strength coffee, froze it in ice cube trays, made simple syrup, and chilled that. I threw the coffee ice cubes, some simple syrup, and some whole milk in the blender and frapped the heck out of it. It was good, even really good. But that was in the days before I had 5 sons who clambered for smoothies and slushies every time I broke out the blender. Sometimes, folks, I just want an iced coffee, not a production.

A few weeks ago the solution dawned on me. I had, for reasons known only to my subconscious, put an empty spaghetti sauce jar and it’s lid through the dishwasher.

Sidebar: Before anyone says, “Hey! I thought you made everything from scratch. What gives?” I’d just like to say that if you have 5 sons at home and you never make a hot dog or jarred sauce meal you’re a better man than I am. And besides, it was served with homemade meatballs on homemade pasta with homemade bread. (And a bagged salad, Argh!)

But I was talking about iced coffee and if you make this you’ll forgive me my inconsistencies. 

This is how it works:

1. Put up to 3 Tablespoons chocolate syrup (I use 1 Tablespoon) in a clean, empty 24 oz jar with a tight fitting lid. Nestle’s Chocolate Syrup does NOT contain High Fructose Corn Syrup and it was on sale, so that’s what I used here. 

2. Pour onto that 4 oz. super strong coffee. For me it was the half-caffeinated sort. For my hubby it would be full caffeine. If you have time to chill it that’s great, if not, the next step will take care of the heat.

3. Firmly twist the lid into place and shake vigorously until coffee and chocolate syrup are fully combined.

4. Remove lid, add 1 cup ice cubes (preferably not crushed), replace lid tightly and shake your bootie like mad until you can feel that the outside of the jar is very cold.

5. Remove lid again, add milk up to where the jar narrows (about 4 oz.), replace the lid and shake like Elvis’s pelvis even harder than you did before.

6. Remove lid and drink straight from the jar for the fully classy version of the drink or decant into a chilled glass for your food snob friends.

How much money did I just save you on iced coffees?