The Best Shaken Espresso Uses This Bold Sweetener

For a morning pick-me-up with a perfect blend of flavors, take your coffee shaken, not stirred. Thanks to Starbucks, you're probably familiar with shaken espresso drinks. Made with ice, espresso, milk, and sweetener, a shaken espresso is made in a shaker just like your favorite cocktail. How you choose to sweeten this coffee beverage is up to you, but one thing that's not up for debate is that the best shaken espresso is made with brown sugar. After all, the brown sugar shaken espresso is a popular choice at coffee shops. And it's Sabrina Carpenter approved!

Why brown sugar? Brown sugar is slightly less sweet but more flavorful than regular white sugar. The caramel-like molasses flavor in brown sugar is the perfect match for the strong espresso flavor. If you only have white sugar on hand, you can achieve the same bold flavor of brown sugar by adding molasses to your espresso. After all, white sugar is simply refined sugar that has had the coloring and molasses removed from it.

To create this fun drink, grab a cocktail shaker, ice, your favorite milk, and sugar. Pour a couple of espresso shots and shake it all up. Unlike with most coffee recipes, you don't have to use a syrup to give shaken espresso flavor. By adding the brown sugar to the piping hot, fresh espresso as soon as it's made, you can completely dissolve the sugar crystals into the coffee without adding any additional liquid. If you want to play around with flavors, try shaking your espresso with sweetened condensed milk or blending a banana into your milk of choice before adding it to the shaker.

Although the coffee giant brought the shaken espresso into the mainstream, Starbucks certainly didn't invent the shaken espresso. That credit goes to coffee capital and Starbucks' original inspiration, Italy. The idea for iced coffee supposedly arrived in Italy in the 1600s, but the exact origin of the Italian shaken coffee, the shakerato, is debatable. The shakerato is made the same way as a shaken espresso, except some recipes instruct you to strain the mixture before pouring it over a cup of ice or serve without ice at all, like pictured above.