We Ranked the Top 9 Brands of Bottled Cold Brew

Like Hansel in Zoolander, cold brew is so hot right now

Josh Scherer
There was never anything wrong with brewing hot coffee, throwing it in the fridge, then pouring it over ice, and Starbucks can never convince me that their $1 upcharge for cold brew instead of standard iced coffee is even close to worth it. That’s one of the few moral stands I’ll take in life. But the cold brew explosion did do one fantastic and wholly necessary thing: It started a ready-to-drink-cold-black-coffee arms race between tons of companies, and ready-to-drink-cold-black-coffee is the best kind of coffee. So we put them all to the (completely unscientific and inherently subjective) test. Here is your definitive cold brew hierarchy:

9. Chameleon

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Chameleon was one of the first major players in the cold brew coffee game and it’s still the most ubiquitous, which means it had the disadvantage of laying the foundation for others to improve on. Still, that’s no excuse for tasting like a bunch of stagnant lake water that’s been soaking in used Folgers grounds collected from the dumpster outside a 24-hour diner.

8. Kona Red

Everyone’s tried to make iced coffee by pouring a bunch of hot coffee directly on ice cubes. It makes sense in your head. Just add enough ice and the coffee eventually has to cool down. But then you realize that hot coffee eats ice like a black hole eats light and you’re left with a…