Mr Black: How a spirits brand helped drive quality for cold coffee cocktails
Cold Coffee Success Stories is a series that focuses on pioneering companies in the cold coffee space and their unique stories. This week, we feature Mr Black, an Australian purveyor of coffee liqueur, with the goal of bringing the country’s passion for coffee and spirits together.
Dick Bradsell, a British bartending guru, is credited with the invention of the espresso martini back in the 1980s, revolutionising London’s bar and restaurant scene at the time. Today, the espresso martini is a global cocktail bar classic.
In 2013, designer Tom Baker and distiller Philip Moore, Mr Black’s co-founders, decided to bring Australia’s notorious passion for specialty coffee together with its love for alcoholic beverages, developing a coffee liquor that highlights high-quality coffee with an artisanal touch.
We spoke with Tom to paint a clearer picture of his company’s origins, his thoughts on the importance of strong branding and aesthetics, and what he expects from the future of cold coffee.
Combining coffee culture with nightlife
“Mr Black was founded in 2013 with a simple mission: to take Australia’s craft coffee culture into the night,” says Tom.
Australia today is home to one of the most innovative, forward-thinking, and passionate specialty coffee cultures in the world. It has a rich history of award-winning baristas, cafés, and coffee roasters.
Over twenty years ago, in 2003, Paul Basset became the fourth World Barista Champion in Boston, Massachusetts. He was followed by fellow Antipodeans Sasa Sestic in Seattle in 2015 and Anthony Douglas in Melbourne in 2022. Naturally, all three have since been instrumental in furthering specialty coffee culture across Australia, founding companies, inventing equipment, and leading research.
Australia is perhaps most famous in the coffee world for the globalisation of the flat white, an international café staple. Today, it is one of the most common coffee-based beverage orders, front and centre on the menus of multinational branded coffee chains and local independent restaurants.
Creating signature beverages with worldwide potential seems to be part of Australian coffee culture’s DNA. It has since given us the short black, the ristretto, and the piccolo, and Mr. Black is cut from the same cloth.
“Between 2013 and 2023, we became the fastest-growing coffee liqueur in the world before being acquired by Diageo,” Tom says.
“We continue to produce our acclaimed coffee liqueur at our roastery and distillery in Wyong, just north of Sydney. As of this year, we’ve also begun production in Houston, Texas, to meet the incredible demand for Mr Black in North America. Today, you can find us in 22 counties, including every American state, and there is more to come.”
Just like the flat white has gone global, so has Mr Black, taking root and shape in the Australian food and beverage scene before taking a leading role in shaping coffee culture abroad.
How significant have cold coffee trends been in terms of Mr Black’s success?
“The popularity of cold brew has undeniably fuelled our growth in the liquor space. Cold brew resonates with people – they know what it tastes like – which has helped us stand out as part of a new generation of producers,” says Tom.
“That said, the phrase cold brew, while still necessary, feels less critical to our identity now than it did pre-2020. Across the coffee world, consumers are increasingly focused on flavour and service rather than the technicalities of production. Hot brewed? Flash brewed? Cold brewed? At the end of the day, it’s about taste and delivering on expectations.”
Mr Black is a cold brew coffee product in essence. Specialty-grade coffee beans from three origins – Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, and Brazil – are roasted and blended to create the product’s signature profile. Then, the coffee is cold-infused and cold-pressed, left unfiltered, before being enhanced with an Australian grain spirit.
Cold brew coffee, more broadly, has grown in popularity thanks to its naturally lower acidity and bitterness compared to espresso-based beverages and its overall mellower flavour profile, qualities that dovetail with macro health and wellness trends. It’s also served cold, suitable for RTD packaging, and is hence perceived as more convenient.
Mr Black’s approach to cold brew is unique. The company says the result of its brewing process is an intense flavour profile necessary for use as a suitable base for the cocktails it’s commonly used to power, like espresso martinis and coffee negronis.
However, despite the difference in results, the company nails the success factors that are undergirding cold brew development, namely customisation and variation. Yes, in cafés and coffee shops, consumers enjoy cold brews for their lighter profile, but they also crave novelty and innovation.
Leveraging cold brew as a base for a seemingly limitless amount of customised beverages, Mr Black is contributing to cold coffee growth in its own way, helping consumers and professionals alike become more creative, more appreciative of cold brew’s wider potential, and more comfortable consuming coffee in different settings and during different dayparts.
How does Mr Black see the future of cold coffee?
“The segment we are in, and pioneered, is experiencing a renaissance,” says Tom. “Ten years ago, liquor store shelves had maybe two overly sweet coffee liqueurs.”
“We ignited a revolution back in 2013, and since then, hundreds of new entrants have appeared, and some are surprisingly good. But it’s not just liqueurs. Coffee after dark now spans whiskies, gins, canned cocktails, and even drinks in glass, bags, and jars. It’s thrilling to see this surge of innovation in the category.”
Cold coffee isn’t just growing steadily; it’s growing rapidly. The cold brew coffee market alone is exhibiting over 22% CAGR and is forecasted to exceed $16 billion globally by 2032. The coffee liqueur space, meanwhile, is growing at a healthy 11.63% and is expected to reach $131.77 billion by the same year.
Mr Black is comfortably enjoying the performance of both categories, but Tom makes it clear that they aren’t resting on their laurels and are continuing to drive innovation forward.
“We make an RTD espresso martini in Australia, launched back in 2021. We introduced it for two reasons: firstly, Espresso Martinis are delicious, and secondly, we couldn’t visit bars during Covid.”
“It took us a year, but we created a genuinely excellent cocktail in a can, and it has remained popular since. They are the real deal; it tastes like there is an actual shot of espresso in it.”
Tom and his team at Mr Black are acutely aware of the wants and desires of modern coffee consumers. The introduction of their RTD product is another successful example of listening to their audience and delivering beverages that tap into multiple consumer trends at once.
For Mr Black, the night looks bright.
At Cold Brew Pak, we offer a variety of sustainable, customisable packaging for cold brew coffee products, from multi-serve bag-in-boxes and flexible cold brew pouches to sleek, slimline aluminium cans and BPA-free plastic bottles.
To source your own line, visit our website or get in touch with us directly.
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