Café Granita

A bold, semi-sweet, rum-based coffee liqueur from Mexico; the coffee beans are roasted & fermented with sugar. It has an aromatic birth with notes of fresh black coffee, while a bold life led to a long & semi-sweet death. October 2021 / 2024

Coffee and cocoa nose. Sweet on the palate, coffee, chocolate and vanilla.

Aromas of cold sweet coffee. Some roastiness and some alcohol aroma too. Taste like I let my 5 year old add sugar to my coffee. Way too sweet. Cloying. Super thick and syrupy. Might make a good mixer but tough to drink neat unless you wanna chew. The finish is a little bit redeeming. There’s a ver nice acidic tang that pairs well with the alcohol. I’ll add some ice and see if I can thin it to a more reasonable liquid.

Had this side by side with Kahlua and this definitely holds its own- particularly at a lower price point. This tastes more like a darker espresso compared to Kahlua. Would definitely get this again.

Café Granita has a much stronger, richer coffee aroma than Kahlúa. It’s also got a stronger, although perhaps harsher, coffee flavor. Sampling them neat, side by side, I sometimes prefer the stronger flavor of Café Granita, and sometimes the mellower flavor of Kahlúa. If you’re looking for something to mix into a cocktail, Café Granita may actually be preferable.

Rating: 7/23 I must have missed this on the rack last time I was at Total Wine picking up a bottle of Kahlúa Especial and any other coffee liqueur I could find to compare with my parents' recently discovered late 80s/early 90s Kahlúa. N: It smells more like coffee than Vita Divine Coffee does. It smells less like it than Kahlúa does though. I get mainly some chemicals, then a vague richness of something that could be coffee. There's something kind of vegetal and earthy. It's kind of sweet, also kind of light. I can already tell that this won't be very good P: Actually, I get a vague amount of rich, bitter, astringency at the beginning, as well as a hint of tropical fruit...and then sweet, young, impure spirit comes in. And the chemicals. Also, all of the chalky confectioner's sugar of regular Kahlúa. This is absolutely just regular Kahlúa but worse. It's sort of like somebody was trying to make something that might have been coffee liqueur out of rum and then they spilled some sort of soap or industrial cleaner in it. I mean, it isn't harsh and it could probably be disguised by ice cream or something, but it's pretty bad. It's fairly syrupy, but not incredibly rich. F: That confectioner's sugar lingers, along with some bitter chemicals and maybe some sort of coffee syrup. Maybe some maple. It's bad. It might be a bit cheaper than Kahlúa, but it's worse. The alcohol chemicals are less present than in Vita Divine and also some more richness. Still, it's bad. We're talking an 8 at best here, but more likely a 6 or 7. I think a 7 is most appropriate. Do avoid.