The Best Milk You'll Ever Have

It's just science.

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As a barista, I’ve probably touched more milk than I have coffee. But I know significantly less about milk than coffee.

I’m not surprised by this, but when I say so to others, they seem confused. When we talk about coffee, milk rarely enters the conversation—even though 68% of coffee drinkers put some sort of milk (dairy or non-dairy) in their coffee.

I recently interviewed the 2022 United States Barista Champion, Morgan Eckroth. Morgan runs a popular TikTok channel, as well as other social media pages, and their win is a big deal for a few reasons. Barista competitions are a pretty niche thing, even though they’re often considered one of the most intense and high-profile events for working baristas. Folks who do well in competition often go on to open up their own shops, or find other jobs within the industry.

Morgan chronicled their preparations for the championship in a series of YouTube videos, with the idea that casual viewers would be able to follow along on their journey—and also that future baristas would be able to use those videos as a guide to help them prepare for competition:

We released a full video about how to freeze-distill milk and why we nowadays do that a lot in competition, and what it tastes like and what drinks I was doing. The minute that video is uploaded, you check the box and you’re like, “Well, we’re using freeze-distilled milk. Like we can’t change it now…”

I studied tons and tons of other competitors’ routines, but beyond that, and looking over the rulebook, there wasn’t really any information about what I should be doing or shouldn’t be doing. So my hope was to create a little capsule of videos that could at least act as a starting point for someone like me, back when I was competing for the first time.

Morgan’s interview reminded me of the importance of chronicling things, and how helpful it is to have a shared record of moments in time. Coffee is … not great at capturing its own history, and as I work on other articles or projects, I’m surprised by how often I run into dead ends.

One of those dead ends, it turned out, appeared during my recent search for “freeze-distilled milk.” Other than coffee meme accounts (which are a big deal, and have become a place for pros to talk to each other, dish out ideas, and share complaints), I found just one page of Google results explaining the technique. As Morgan alludes to, freeze-distilled milk is now a staple in coffee competitions—so why is there so little information about it publicly available?

In the spirit of sharing knowledge, capturing a distinct moment in time, and learning how new concepts are popularized within our industry, let’s do a quick crash course on freeze-distilled milk—what it is, how it’s made, why it’s become so ubiquitous, and why it’s a particular favorite of barista competitors.

What is freeze-distilled milk?

One of the few hits I found on Google was a Facebook video by Ben Put, a multi-time Canadian Barista Champion, and one of the co-owners of Monogram Coffee in Calgary, Alberta. In the video, he explains what freeze-distilled milk is, because he’s sort of the reason it’s popular.

I realized, as I watched the video, that I had actually seen Ben talk about this concept before: In 2017, Ben competed in the World Barista Championships (WBC) in Seoul, and he used freeze-distilled milk. (Further proving my point that coffee is bad at capturing its own history—I couldn’t find any videos of Ben competing at the WBC that year.) In this competition, participating baristas serve three rounds of drinks: a single espresso shot, a signature drink centered around coffee, and a milk-based drink. For his milk course, Ben decided to freeze-distill his milk.

In a lucky twist of fate, I happened to be in Seoul for the WBC, and I remember seeing Ben do this weird thing with his milk without knowing what was going on. I eventually got to ask him about it in an interview for Barista Magazine, where I was the online editor at the time. Even the way I formed the question (“You did something unique with your milk for the milk course,” I asked. “Could you tell us about that?”) showed that I had no clue what he was up to.

As Morgan mentions, in 2022 it’s now become normal for competitors to freeze-distill their milk. In less than five years, freeze distillation (some chemists might describe this process as “fractional freezing”) has become so popular among this niche group of coffee competitors, and you want to know why?

Because it tastes really, really good.

Freeze distillation takes advantage of the fact that different substances melt at different rates. As Ben explains in the Facebook video, “Milk is composed of many, many different things, and some of them melt at different rates … the first things that leave are sugar and salt.” If you freeze a gallon of milk, and then let it slowly defrost, those tasty sugars, fats, and proteins will melt before the milk’s water content does, making that defrosted portion richer and more concentrated.

“What freeze-distilled milk does is it lets you make sweeter milk,” Ben says. And despite the scientific-sounding name, it’s really easy to do yourself: Just freeze a gallon of milk, turn it upside down into a container, put that in the fridge (NOT on the counter), and let it slowly thaw. You can taste it as it melts to gauge when the milk is to your liking, but it’s good to aim for about half of the volume of the original container. (Here’s a short Twitter thread my friend Veronica made about freeze-distillation techniques.)

What does it taste like?

Ben says freeze distillation was a happy accident. After tasting a cappuccino made by one of his business partners, he attempted to replicate the intense sweetness he tasted, thinking it was the coffee that lent the flavor. The two soon realized that the milk they were using was partially frozen—and was the source of the mystery sweetness.

The most common description that I hear of freeze-distilled milk is that it tastes a lot like melted ice cream. The inherent sweetness of the milk is amplified because the ratio of sugar is higher, and you’re also getting more salt, which is a flavor enhancer. As Ben describes, sometimes freeze-distilled milk can taste overly salty—he says a common flavor note is cheesecake or salted caramel—so he advises looking for milks with a low salt content.

The process of freeze-distilling can take a long time. But what is cool about the technique is that you can do it at home without any special equipment. (Again, be sure you’re doing it safely, which both Ben and Morgan talk about in their videos—if you allow milk to get above a certain temperature for a prolonged period, it can make you sick.)

There are two reasons why it’s worth breaking down this technique: One, because your baristas are doing it in competitions, in part because that’s how the rules are laid out. In the WBC, baristas must serve a milk-based beverage to the judges, and it must be dairy milk (no plant-based milks are allowed). Also, baristas are specifically scored on a metric called “taste balance,” which evaluates the balance between espresso and, as the rules state, “rich, sweet milk.”

Two: Signature drinks are becoming more popular. I began working in coffee during a time when folks really pared down their menus: The only drink options were the classic milk-based beverages and drip coffee. Now I see more coffee shops embracing variety and adding fun riffs on coffee drinks, including homemade syrups and unexpected flavors. And freeze-distilling is something you can do at home in the spirit of creativity and having fun with your coffee. You may never get to try Morgan’s coffee, but you can try this technique and experience a portion of Morgan’s routine.

I almost ended this piece with the paragraph above, but then I asked my partner and fellow coffee worker, Jesse, to read it over. I asked him what he thought, and he said, “this reads like an NBA sports commentator calling the game.”

There are so many moving parts to any industry the closer you look inside. Coffee feels straightforward—and then you take a peek under the hood and suddenly there are a hundred thousand things flying your way. Some of the things we learn make sense, and some things don’t. I think the part that always gets me is when we question why we do a thing and the answer is, “I don’t know.” The idea has never been challenged.

Commentary has always interested me. I watch an absurd about of “reaction” videos on YouTube and I truly think it’s the only thing I like about sports. In 2018 and 2019, I gave commentary during the United States Barista Competition (Morgan mentioned in their interview that the competition is usually live-streamed—if you watched the live stream you could hear me explaining what the baristas were doing and why). What I find rewarding about this work is that we do so many things without ever questioning why, and having to give commentary forces you to consider where things come from and what benefit they have.

So no, this isn’t a “freeze-distilling how-to” or a space for me to say if this technique is good or bad (if you look at the coffee meme accounts, it’s kind of a thing that gets dunked on a lot, and I totally get why). Instead—and to further the sports analogy—it’s to make sure we’re not always playing inside baseball: it’s to explain how we got here and to bring readers and listeners along for the ride. I hope you enjoyed riding along with me.

Before you go…

I’ve been digging into coffee history lately, and I was wondering: What’s your favorite coffee book? I’d like to build up my library and spend some time in the coming months reading some foundational texts, but I don’t think there are many good lists or reviews of the most essential coffee books around. Perhaps a future post?

Also, some news: I’m serving as the managing editor for the revitalization of Fresh Cup, a longstanding coffee publication that shuttered during the pandemic. I’m now working with a small team to bring it back, and my job is to work with freelancers and edit their pieces. It’s fun and exciting, and I hope you check out the website!

Lastly! Starbucks announced that they’re launching NFTs for some terrible reason. Newly reinstated CEO Howard Schultz seems dead set on painting the chain’s unionizing workers as an “outside force,” and then trying to change the subject to new! shiny! technology! that is already beginning to crash. Not only are NFTs in decline, but they’re also a mess in terms of sustainability, something Starbucks has proclaimed as one of its core values. A Starbucks employee shared these concerns in an emotional plea during a corporate presentation.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

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