The boomin' iced coffee setup

My summertime iced coffee setup is pretty sweet. Any time we have leftover coffee in the carafe after brewing for the morning, I add it to a pitcher in the fridge. Sometimes I'll brew a batch up just to add to our Strategic Iced Coffee Reserves. I know some people monkey with proportions on iced coffee to offset the watering down from ice cubes. But these people have clearly not used some of this excess to make coffee ice cubes. When they melt they inject more coffee, so the resulting beverage is just like my hot setup, just all Eskimo'd.

Sugar dissolves best in hot liquids, which is why my engineer father used to add it before the cream could cool it down. (He now takes it black.) Dunkin Donuts used to dissolve their iced coffee sugar in a bit hot coffee, or maybe they still do -- I now take "liquid sugar" in my DD iced coffee, which is just sugar syrup. But sugar syrup involved boiling and cooling water, so I use a trick I got from a bartending book: put confectioner's sugar and water into a jelly jar and shake the crap out of it.

The recipe: scoop powdered sugar into a spill-proof Contigo mug, add a shot of cold coffee, seal, and shake like a martini. Add coffee, cream, and coffee ice cubes. The Contigo keeps the ice unmelted for hours, enjoy the new summertime staple.