My refrigerator is always stocked with plenty of heavy cream. In fact, I have a rotation system for the cartons so I use them in the order of purchase date. Hmmm. Do I sound a tad OCD? Oh yes I do.

Last week my husband, Mike, mentioned that he hadn’t had a White Russian cocktail in a long while. Me? I’d never tasted one before, nor did I have any desire. He dusted off a bottle of Kahlua that’s been in the basement forever, and poured an ounce over ice, added some vodka, and topped with a splash (or two) of heavy cream. It had a rich  flavor and texture, and yes, it was delicious (think Bailey’s), but after just one sip I knew the Kahlua had to be loaded with sugar. Umm hmm. Try 33 carbs for a 2.5 ounce serving- every single carb from sugar. So we knew right then we had to come up with our own low-carb Kahlua recipe to fit into our keto diet plan. We enjoy sipping over ice as a dessert cocktail.

I started searching the web, and yep, low carb/sugar-free coffee liqueur was a thing. Plenty of food and beverage bloggers beat me to the punch. We’re merely following in their footsteps, but adding a few tricks of our own. Each time we’ve made improvements to our coffee liqueur recipe, but it still has only one, repeat, one net carb for every 2.5 ounces.

I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was 40 years old. “Too bitter,” I thought. But the aroma of my husband’s coffee every morning got me started using mild beans with a little cream added. A few years later and I’m good with mild, medium, or bold coffee beans. A few months ago we discovered Purity Coffee. It’s 100% USDA Certified Organic (and less than 3% of coffee worldwide is organic), specialty grade, and mold and mycotoxin free. They also roast their beans to optimize the level of antioxidants (substances that can prevent or slow damage caused by free radicals) with almost 2 times the levels of other leading brands.

Best of all, the taste is out-of-this-world delicious. We’ve been drinking it for a while now, and knew we wanted to use Purity Dark Roast beans for our coffee liqueur. They are a premium brand, but well-worth paying a little extra. You can buy their products on puritycoffee.com. We start with 2 cups of freshly brewed espresso. If you don’t have an espresso machine, no worries. A strongly-brewed dark roast coffee will work just fine.

INSTRUCTIONS

In a heavy saucepan, add a cup of filtered water (this helps keep everything in solution), espresso, and truvia confectioners sugar replacement sweetener. You can use any sugar substitute here, but we prefer avoiding granulated erythritol to reduce the chance of crystallization during storage. Whisk over medium heat until truvia is completely dissolved and the mixture begins to simmer, which takes about 5-10 minutes. Remove pan from heat.

At this point, we like to add a few extra layers to the flavor, so we infuse our homemade keto coffee liqueur with a cinnamon stick and an orange peel, and let it steep for about an hour. This is where you can get creative. Add a few cacao nibs, a vanilla bean, or crushed pecans, hazelnuts, or mint leaves inside a tea/spice ball, or if you’re fresh out of a tea ball, you can tie them up in cheesecloth. I have chef grade, cotton reusable spice bags I bought a while back that work great for infusing just about everything.

Either infused or not, allow the mixture to cool for about an hour, then remove any infusions. Add rum, vanilla extract and stir. Next, we like to add Jordan’s Skinny Salted Caramel syrup (sugar-free) to round out the flavors and give it a touch of caramel notes. You can use caramel extract as well. Pour into mason jar or a glass bottle and cap. Make sure to store in a cool and dark place for a few weeks, allowing the flavors to combine and mellow. We couldn’t wait that long, and sampled after only 24 hours. It was already delicious. Make sure to give your bottle a shake before serving to disperse sediments. If you want the coffee liqueur to be crystal-clear, filter through coffee filters once or twice.