Wine-Infused Coffee Exists Now, So How Do We Make All These Coffee Mashups Stop?

People are always trying to take the things we love and improve on them. Sometimes it works (See: Cronut), and sometimes it backfires horribly (See: Jell-O For Salads).

The logic is sound: “Let's take two things people love, put them together, and people will love it twice as much!” The mathematical representation of this line of thought is Love + Love = 2x Love. Unfortunately, contrary to what someone wise once said, the whole isn't always greater than the sum of the parts. Sometimes you just end up ruining two equally loveable things, creating instead something wholly unlovable. The mathematical representation of this is Love + Love = Nightmare Fuel.

In this case, we’re talking about coffee, and all the terrible things people are trying to force it to be by combining it with other unnecessary ingredients. The most recent culprit: Wine Coffee.

Now if you’ve ever been drinking a warm, delightful French roast and thought to yourself, “You know, this could use a dash of Merlot,” you’re either a liar, need to cut back on drinking, or you work at Molinari Private Reserve. That’s where Delish reports that Wine Coffee originated. By roasting wine alongside the coffee beans, the Napa Valley café has managed to create a drink that smells like wine, and tastes like coffee. Just what everyone wants: to take a big sniff of wine at 7 a.m.

If it feels like we’re being unjustly harsh, just know this isn’t completely Wine Coffee’s fault. Instead, the drink is just the coffee-mashup-straw that’s breaking the camel's back. Before the world was blessed with Light Roasted Pinot Grigio, there was the whole Juice + Coffee trend. (We refuse to call it “Joffee.”) Created by a Texas company, fans of the brew like to point out that a bottle of Coffee Juice contains seven fewer grams of sugar than a Red Bull. But do you know what has even fewer grams of sugar that Coffee Juice? Coffee Without Juice. And don’t forget that before there was Coffee Juice or Wine Coffee, there was Coffee Tea. Or maybe CoffTea, though that sounds more like a cold remedy than a morning beverage.

Wine, juice, tea, lemonade, Coca Cola, coconut water, kombucha: we’re just trying to say that your coffee doesn't need mixers. In the spirit of seeing both sides of the argument, however, we will admit there is one outside beverage worthy of mixing into your next brew:

It’s called “milk.”