Lavender-Vanilla Cold Brew with CBD Sugar

Cold brew rewards patience, which is the same thing this drink is quietly about. You steep coarse grounds in cold water overnight, so the coffee comes out low-acid, round, and almost sweet on its own — and then you sweeten it with a CBD sugar syrup infused with lavender and vanilla. Nothing about it is fussy. You build a jar of concentrate and a jar of syrup on a Sunday, and for the rest of the week "make a coffee" means "pour two things over ice."

CBD sugar is a genuinely useful pantry ingredient because it dissolves the way sugar already does — into syrups, batters, rims, and doughs — without asking you to learn a new technique. Here it does double duty: it sweetens the coffee and folds in the floral lavender at the same time.

About dose, because it's a drink you'll refill

This recipe makes four drinks, and the CBD sugar is portioned across the whole batch. If you're pouring for people, mention it; if you're new to infused sweeteners, start with one glass and see how you feel before the second. Cold brew is easy to drink fast — go slow on purpose. Everything on gudkitchen is built for adults 21+, and this is no exception.

Part one: the cold brew concentrate

1. Combine. In a large jar or pitcher, stir the coarse grounds into the cold water until every ground is wet. Coarse is non-negotiable — fine grounds over-extract and turn bitter and silty.
2. Steep. Cover and leave it on the counter or in the fridge for 12 to 18 hours. Longer is stronger; past 24 hours it gets muddy.
3. Strain. Pour through a fine-mesh sieve lined with a coffee filter or a clean kitchen towel. Don't press the grounds — let it drip so the brew stays clean. You'll have a smooth concentrate that keeps in the fridge for a week.

Part two: the lavender-vanilla CBD syrup

1. Bloom the botanicals. Put the lavender and the split vanilla bean (seeds scraped in) in a heatproof jar.
2. Dissolve the sugar. Stir the CBD sugar into the ⅓ cup of hot — not boiling — water until fully dissolved, then pour it over the lavender and vanilla. Keeping the water below a hard boil is deliberate: gentle heat dissolves and infuses without driving off the delicate florals.
3. Steep and strain. Let it sit 10 minutes, then strain out the lavender and bean. You'll have a small jar of fragrant syrup. It keeps two weeks refrigerated.

Build the drink

Fill a tall glass with ice. Pour in cold brew concentrate and cut it with cold water or milk to taste — I like about two parts concentrate to one part oat milk. Stir in 1 to 2 teaspoons of the lavender-vanilla CBD syrup, taste, and adjust. That's it.

Tips that make it better

• Grind matters more than beans. A cheap coarse grind beats an expensive fine one for cold brew. If your grocery grinder has a setting, use the coarsest.
• Under-sweeten, then top up. Cold dulls sweetness, so it's tempting to overpour syrup. Add half, taste over ice, then add the rest.
• Warm it instead. The same syrup is lovely stirred into a hot latte on a cold morning; the lavender comes forward when it's warm.
• Make it a float. A scoop of vanilla ice cream and a shot of concentrate is an adults-only affogato.

Storage

Keep the concentrate and the syrup in separate sealed jars in the fridge — concentrate for a week, syrup for two — and assemble to order. Keeping them apart means you control the sweetness (and the dose) glass by glass instead of committing the whole batch at once. That control is the entire reason to make your own.