Mazagran Coffee (Iced Coffee Lemonade)

I have a love-hate relationship with iced coffee. No, that's not quite right, it's not love-hate, it's love-meh. As a staunch drinker of black coffee, I have long known, deep in my bones, that the iced coffee I crave as soon as the hot weather rolls around is not as delicious as the hot coffee I drink the rest of the year. In recent years I have accepted this fully, so that it's now common to find me on a steamy August morning sweating through an even more steamy cup of black coffee. I'll do anything for flavor.

I'm excited for all my future summers, though, because I'm now an avowed Mazagran coffee drinker, and while I can't claim that it's served "black" due to the fact that it's coffee mixed with lemon juice and sugar, it is an iced coffee so refreshing, so undeniably delicious that I'd be willing to drink it every single warm day of the year, and very possibly all the cold ones too. It's that good.

My journey to this phase of my iced-coffee drinking life has been a long one. For years I sought great iced coffee on its own terms, jumping from technique to technique as I grew disillusioned with each like a polar bear leaping to ever-shrinking ice floes. About twelve years ago I was in the phase in which I tried to convince myself cold brew had solved all my problems. But slowly, as I spent more time with cold brew (including running a series of enlightening taste tests for Serious Eats), I admitted to myself that it wasn't the best way to feature cold coffee in an unsweetened, un-milked form.

After that I shifted to "Japanese-style" iced coffee, in which coffee is brewed hot directly onto ice, which was the method that won in my tastings when served black. But even then, I had to face a personal truth—I still preferred my coffee hot. I've always loved iced coffee with lots of milk, but that's a much heavier drink than I want for caffeine delivery most days, so it's not an option I would make a habit.

Now, with Mazagran, I have icy cold, bright, and refreshing coffee to look forward to day after day. I hope you will too.

What Is Mazagran Coffee?

While different variations of Mazagran iced coffee can be found around the world, in its most essential form it is simply a coffee-lemonade hybrid. Some recipes spike it with rum or another spirit, but plenty of others leave the alcohol out.

The story of Mazagran's creation is often told something like this: It was the "world's first iced coffee," created in 1840 by vastly outnumbered French colonial troops while successfully defending the Mazagran fort in the town of Mostaganem during the French conquest of Algeria. According to the tale, as supplies dwindled and the embattled French troops fought tooth and nail to survive, they had to quit their habit of drinking coffee with liquor or milk or whatever they were using and dilute it with sweetened cold water instead. The soldiers then took this practice back to France, where it became a popular drink served in a tall, narrow porcelain cup. From there, it spread to other countries like Portugal.

At some point—precisely when and where is unclear—lemon became a popular addition, possibly first as wedges or rinds as a flavorful garnish, but then in the form of sweetened lemon juice. Thus the drink ended up in coffee-spiked lemonade territory.

It's impossible to know just how much truth lies in this origin story for Mazagran, though it smacks of the kind of national myth-building that often accompanies military conquests. Seen through this lense, the Mazagran coffee story serves to romanticize France's invasion of Algeria by celebrating the idea of French ingenuity and ultimate success in the face of unlikely odds. It's a David-versus-Goliath narrative that casts the French as the victorious underdogs, when in reality they were the invading superpower.

It's also hard to believe that it required this particular moment in military history for anyone to figure out that diluting coffee with water and drinking it cold might be enjoyable. I know firsthand that my daily mug of coffee frequently drops to room temperature whenever I'm too busy to drink it quickly, and I can only assume this would have happened to coffee drinkers around the world in the 19th century as well. Add to that the fact that room temperature was likely how these French soldiers would have been drinking their diluted coffee—not iced, as the "world's first iced coffee" moniker implies—given that this story occurs in a time when ice for beverages was a luxury available to few, in particular during a siege in a famously hot land.

How to Make Great Mazagran Iced Coffee

I may be a skeptic about how Mazagran coffee came into being, and I'm certainly dubious of the motivation of its story's tellers, but one thing I do not doubt is how good Mazagran coffee is. When working on this recipe, I spoke to my former Serious Eats colleague and coffee expert Jesse Raub to get his take on Mazagran along with any tips he could share on preparing an excellent version of it. His advice set me on the right path.

"People don't always think of these coffee drinks correctly," he told me. "You can dump all the ingredients together, but it may not come out balanced and with the flavor profile you're trying to hit." Instead of trying to land on the one perfect recipe, Jesse advised me to think of the drink more like making a vinaigrette: Start with the flavorful base, get that flavor balanced, then dilute it.

In vinaigrette's case, that would mean starting with the vinegar or citrus juice, seasoning it with salt and any other add-ins like mustard or garlic, and then diluting with the oil until the flavor is just right. In the case of this coffee, the idea is to combine the concentrated coffee, whether cold brew concentrate, espresso, or some other strongly brewed coffee, and then mix in fresh lemon juice and sugar until it tastes perfectly balanced, if on the strong side. Only then would you add ice and dilute with water as needed to get it to a pleasurable stage. "If it tastes good on its own when concentrated," Jesse said, "it'll taste good once diluted."

This was a critical insight, and it helped deal with the trickiest part of writing a simple recipe like this one: Not all strongly brewed coffees taste the same. There's really no one magic ratio or recipe for making this coffee taste good, since it depends so much on what the coffee you're starting with tastes like, as well as how concentrated that coffee is. So while I offer a recipe below, I've made an effort to keep the specifics flexible—my ratio is just a starting point, you should adjust as needed to get your coffee to a place where it tastes great with the other ingredients.

A few points to consider:

• The Coffee: There's a wide world of coffee out there, and a lot of it can work for Mazagran. You'll want something strong, but whether that's cold brew concentrate, a shot or two of espresso, or a strong brew from a moka pot or Aeropress is up to you. Each will be different, and each may require slightly different amounts of lemon and sugar as well as overall dilution. Similarly, different bean types and roast levels will have a range of flavor profiles, from dark and roasty to bright and fruity. Those flavor profiles may also require differing amounts of lemon and sugar and dilution to reach your perfect Mazagran.
  
  In my tests, a good ratio of concentrated coffee to lemon juice is 1:1 by volume, though that may not be true with all types and concentrations of coffee. If using regular-concentration coffee, I've found that 2:1 by volume works (so 1/2 cup coffee to every 1/4 cup of lemon juice), but again, this may require adjustment based on your coffee and taste preferences.
  
• Lemon: Some recipe have you put rounds or wedges of lemon in the coffee along with ice, sugar, and some water, but mine follows Jesse's guidance on truly building a balanced drink with the component parts. That means mixing the coffee with fresh lemon juice and then sweetening it to taste. Of course you can always add some lemon pieces to the glass for garnish, or spritz a bit of lemon peel on the surface to get some of the skin's essential oil into the drink for an even more complex aroma.
• Sugar: You have options here. You can just use granulated sugar, though that takes the longest to dissolve into the coffee-lemon base. Superfine sugar, which is just a more finely ground version of granulated sugar that dissolves more quickly, will be even easier. Easiest of all, if you already have it on hand, though, is simple syrup, in which the sugar is already dissolved into an equal volume of water for rapid sweetening and no further dissolving necessary. If you're feeling creative, you can also branch out into other sweeteners, including demerara or brown sugar or maple syrup. Those will bring deeper, darker, more complex flavors to the mix, which may or not be what you're in the mood for.