Celebrate Pantone’s Color of the Year with these on-trend cold brew cocktails

Each year, color bible Pantone puts out its color of the year. Previous years’ colors have included a light peach, a bright magenta, and a classic grey. It recently announced its color of the year for 2025 as well, and it’s a rich cozy brown it’s calling Mocha Mousse. While that most obviously invokes mousse desserts and perhaps a nice warm cup of coffee, the cocktail lovers of the world are already getting in on the trend with drinks themed around warm brown shades.

Two examples of the trend come from orange liqueur brand Cointreau, which has put its own spin on the drinks by incorporating another big trend: cold brew coffee. If you haven’t tried using cold brew in your cocktails before, it’s definitely fun to experiment with, as the robust bitter flavors of the coffee can stand up to strong spirits better than other more dilute coffee types.

If you’re making cold brew to use in a cocktail, be sure to brew it nice and strong — even stronger than you like to drink it neat. That’s because it’s easy to water down the cold brew to your preferred strength, but much hard to reduce it down to a stronger flavor. When making cocktails you’ll be mixing your ingredients with ice, so you’ll be adding dilution here — that’s why you want nice strong cold brew to work with.

Cointreau Cold Brew Margarita

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Cointreau
• 1 oz Cold Brew Coffee
• 0.5 oz Oat Milk
• 2 oz Tequila

Method:

1. Add ice and shake until well chilled
2. Strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass
3. Garnish with espresso beans

Cointreau Cold Brew

Ingredients:

• 1 oz Coconut Milk
• 1.5 oz Cointreau
• 2 oz Cold Brew Coffee

Method:

1. Add ice and shake until well chilled
2. Strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass
3. Garnish with espresso beans