As of today, you can buy Gin Barrel-Aged Rwanda Cold Brew at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle. If gin is your jam, go try this: it’s packed with a huge punch of gin flavor that dominates the coffee flavor. This launched today at the Roastery, and right now is only available as a beverage. Whole bean Gin Barrel-Aged Rwanda is still forthcoming, as I understand it. The gin barrels come from Big Gin in Seattle.

Although Gin Barrel-Aged Rwanda Cold Brew is currently exclusive to the Roastery, previously when Starbucks launched the Whiskey Barrel-Aged Cold Brew, initially it was only available at the Roastery and then ultimately it was available at select Reserve Bar locations.  (Related: For a list of Reserve Bar locations, click here.)

This kind of innovation – coffee beans infused with unique flavors from a barrel aging process – brings you a whole new range of flavors and excitement to experience in a drink. The new Gin Barrel-Aged Rwanda is described as follows:

“Gin Barrel-Aged Rwanda Cold Brew, tonic and lime bitters. Garnished with fresh lime.” It’s $10 for a 10 ounce drink. I asked around which Rwandan beans were being used for the new Gin Barrel-Aged cold brew, and got a very unofficial answer that it’s the Rwanda Abakundakawa.

Gin isn’t really my thing, but this is a must-try experience! And I’m very interested in what other directions Starbucks can take this kind of innovation. What do you think?