Carajillo Stout

[Kemosabe]

First post here. I’m from Mexico and I want to beer-ify the most consumed digestif here. This digestif is called a carajillo and consists of equal parts espresso and licor 43 (a very sugary and spiced liqueur).
In order to beer-ify this digestif I was thinking of brewing a coffee stout and adding in some actual liqueur. Licor 43 is very very sugary and I wanted to ask if those sugars are fermentable and if so then how much should I add to my 5 gal batch?.
I’m also an avid coffee geek and would like to know if espresso is a good addition to a coffee stout.
Any and all advice is welcome.

 

[day_trippr]

Welcome to the forums at Homebrew Talk!

Had to look that one up: "Licor 43 is a golden-hued Spanish liqueur made with a secret blend of 43 herbs and spices. The flavor is absolutely unique, with notes of vanilla, cinnamon and orange peel. It's incredible in coffee, and it makes a stellar mixed drink too."

So, there's a lot going on in there

It's likely the sugars are largely fermentable if the liquor is so notably sweet - trisaccharides and dextrins having little "sweetness" to them. But you could do an experimental fermentation, adding enough Licor 43 to say 100ml of water to bring the solution up to around 1.040 SG, add some yeast, and see what happens to the gravity after a few days or more. Hopefully the alcohol content would be diluted enough to not stun the yeast - you may want to heat up the solution to ~80°C/176°F to drive off the ethanol then cool back down to pitching temperature.

As for the expresso question, I've never used expresso, favoring commercial coffee extract for that kind of flavor addition, but I know it's been done before and if enough is used should provide a satisfying character...

Cheers!