Jesse Mulligan: My Verdict On The Mont Blanc, Genuinely Different From Any Coffee That Has Come Before
Australia has always been an early adopter with culinary trends – smashed avo, natural wine bars, mushroom-based spousal homicide – and if you want to know the next big thing in cafe culture Melbourne is the obvious place to look.
That’s why my ears pricked up when I heard about a new style of coffee being served in Lygon St, the epicentre of the coffee epicentre. It’s been ages since we had a new caffeine-based drink to get excited about – cold brew changed the game, then Bullet Coffee did a good job of putting everybody on to tea. We all have someone in our friend group who tries to make macchiato a thing, but the opportunities to seem cool and mysterious with your cafe order have been few and far between. Until now.
Introducing the Mont Blanc, the new Melbourne must-order that is genuinely different from anything that has come before. Part iced coffee, part cocktail, part dessert, it has become so significant that people plan social occasions around it. Now I will describe it for you and you’ll think I’m having a laugh.
Take a cold brew (coffee extracted over hours without heat) and pour it into a glass, over ice. Whip some thickened cream with maple syrup, or maybe orange juice, then layer it on top (the “snow” on the metaphorical mountain). Finish with orange zest and nutmeg for aroma.
The drink became famous after being invented at a place called Good Measure, and now you’d have to be a fool to be running a Melbourne cafe and not offering it.
It has all the right ingredients for virality – it looks beautiful, the whipped cream part has South Korean “Hallyu” lineage and it came out of arguably the coolest street in Australasia. And now you get to drink it in New Zealand.
Inevitably it was Ponsonby that was among the first to pick up on the trend first, via stylish cafe-eatery Juno in Williamson Ave (though they call their version a Vienna).
Later Mother, West Lynn’s yoga-mum HQ, began offering their own version: the Mother Blanc. For $10 a pop you can sit down and drink this tiramisu-in-a-glass with your besties and catch up on all the goss. I stopped in this week to try one in the least glamorous circumstances possible – alone, doing my taxes.
I’d been advised online not to stir this drink even if tempted, the textural contrast between cold brew and fluffy cream being part of the point. Leaving the head alone also meant I got a fragrant whiff of the extras when I took my first sip. And then, I discovered, something magical happens: the whipped cream starts to dissolve into the coffee in random thin traces, creating beautifully appealing, caramel-coloured streaks through the dark liquid.
The sweetness is definitely noticeable even with the bitter undertone of the coffee. But it’s not quite full-on enough that you feel like you’re eating pudding before morning tea. I was reminded of an espresso martini when I was drinking it but I don’t think it’s as cloying as that (in my opinion hideous) concoction , and of course it’s non-alcoholic (well, traditionally; you do you).
Due to its intensity the Mont Blanc takes longer to drink than a flat white. This makes it more of an event drink – you don’t drain it in five minutes then look around wondering whether to keep hogging the table for free or order a second coffee you don’t really want. And I will admit it is a bit of fun; something different, indulgent enough that you wouldn’t have one daily but not crazy enough that you’d feel guilty at the end of it (you shouldn’t feel guilt about any food or drink you enjoy of course, but the human brain is a funny thing).
If you don’t live close to Mother or Juno or can’t bear the fashion pressure of showing up there post school-run, the excellent Lazy Susan Facebook page has reported Mont Blanc sightings at Fitzroy Deli, Mibo, Candy Shop and Young Dandy. Find a friend and check it out for yourself, then let me know whether you think it’s worth coming back for
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