The Versatile Ingredient Every Host Should Have to Easily Liven Up a Dinner Party

I love going to restaurants and bars. Yet there’s something uniquely freeing and deeply personal about gathering people in a home with a meal as the main event. The food, the drinks, the required reason to stop delaying any plans to tidy up before guests arrive—a dinner party is a showcase of both the host’s taste and a small look into each friend’s taste through what they choose to contribute.

Eater was quick out of the gate to call 2024 “the year of the dinner party,” and a search analysis of various dinner party terms saw double-digit increases on TikTok going into the year. But it’s safe to say the dinner party never went out of fashion, even if it went by different names or saw small ups and downs over the years (RIP the late, great Dinner Party Download podcast). Simply put, there’s rarely a bad time to plan a dinner party.

A surefire way to lighten the post-dinner cleaning load while still serving hit after hit from pre-dinner cocktails to dessert is to have coffee concentrate on hand. Hear me out.

Coffee concentrate doesn’t have the best reputation. It’s easy to find, though the flavor more often lands on the “miss” side of hit-or-miss. There’s no denying the versatility though. Plus, there’s no brewing or waiting for the coffee to chill, and the coffee strength is consistent in big batches.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m prone to winging it when it comes to coffee. I appreciate quality roasted beans as much as the next guy, but I’m not above a dollar cup of drip or a discount bottle of coffee concentrate. The same light approach to any specific recipe or preference goes for what I make with the coffee concentrate (I don’t suggest such an inconsistent approach to espresso martinis for a dinner party).

Kloo changed that for me in recent months. The brand is the first coffee concentrate from a certified Q grader (the coffee equivalent of a sommelier). High-grade beans sourced from Kenya, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Guatemala are roasted in-house, brewed by hand, and brought down to a 12X concentrate under the guidance of Mariella Cho, a Q grader with 15-plus years of roasting, brewing, and tasting experience. It’s the type of coffee where you can actually pick up the tasting notes rather than just nodding your head along pretending. Eye catching design on the sustainable packaging doesn’t hurt, either.

And the best part for the dinner party crowd? Kloo-developed recipes take the guesswork out of what you’re serving. Consider these three recipes from the brand a starter for adding a bit of a caffeinated kick to your next get-together.

Skepticism of mixing a refreshing lager and coffee concentrate is warranted. I, too, had my doubts. Turns out I’d been missing out on the perfect light drink for a hot afternoon, and if a tailgate or barbecue gets your dinner party started early, the beverage makes for a nice low-ABV bridge before the party moves to the dinner table.

Preparation: Add the chilled coffee concentrate to the bottom of a pint glass, then slowly pour in the beer and let it mix naturally.

The hot years of espresso martinis when it seemed like everyone demanded bars have an espresso machine for proper espresso cocktails are behind us. That popularity introduced the masses to what an espresso martini is supposed to taste like (and how bad they usually are without true espresso). Coffee concentrate is a shortcut that leads to actually good espresso martinis at home even without a fancy coffee set up.

Preparation: Add all of the ingredients into a shaker and fill with ice. Shake hard and fast to build up a foam and then pour into a martini glass and top with three coffee beans.

A dessert that needs no introduction. This easy crowd-pleaser will keep the conversations around the table going a little longer and relieve some of the heavy I-ate-too-much feeling. All that’s needed is to pour a shot of coffee concentrate over a scoop of vanilla ice cream.