Caffeine, alcohol and good spirits: We have a winner in the coffee championships

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A new cafe opened in downtown Sacramento in February. Next month, it will carry one of the America’s best coffee cocktails.

MiMo, the coffee manager of Cora Coffee at 1201 J St., crafted cocktails that placed third in the United States Coffee In Good Spirits Championship last weekend. The competition is a subset of the U.S. Coffee Championships. Its long-awaited semifinals and finals were held in Boston, two years and a pandemic after the initial qualifying rounds.

MiMo’s self-description on the championships’ website: “Just a barista playing bartender. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m having a good time.”

“It was just a crazy cool experience,” they said. “And I’m just really surprised and blessed that I got third place.”

Contestants made one cold and one hot coffee cocktail in the semifinal round. They mixed their favorite designer cocktail and made an Irish coffee in the finals.

MiMo’s cold cocktail looked and tasted like a matcha lemonade, made with espresso (a blend of natural Ethiopian and washed Guatemalan beans), tonic water, pineapple rum and blue raspberry Kool-aid. The hot one riffed on boozy pineapple upside-down cake: roasted pineapple syrup, Hennessy, pineapple rum and espresso.

Cora Coffee is the caffeine drip for Centrl Office, a new downtown coworking space with a Portland-based parent company. An attached beer hall called Loyal Legion will open around mid-May, MiMo said. When it does, Cora will be licensed to start serving cocktails as well. MiMo plans to introduce the matcha lemonade drink (along with a nonalcoholic version).

MiMo, who uses they/them pronouns, started drinking coffee at about 5 years old and broke into the industry with Hopscotch Coffee & Records while attending college in Winchester, Va.

They then made coffee at Michelin-starred Pineapple & Pearls in Washington,D.C. ,and cocktails at Shaka Shaka Tiki in Brooklyn — the inspiration for the tropical competition drinks — before moving to Sacramento in July 2020. After working at Scorpio Coffee and Mast Coffee and giving birth to their first child, MiMo started working for Cora Coffee in October.

MiMo and their partner Nick McPherson founded instant coffee micro-brand Juno Coffee along the way. Now roasted at CoRo Coffee in Berkeley, Juno is available for purchase through its website, where MiMo has also posted a handful of coffee cocktail recipes.

What I’m Eating

After surfing in Pacifica the other week, a friend and I went on the hunt for the best post-ocean California meal: fish tacos. As we chowed down, my friend asked if any Sacramento taquerias specialized in the kinds of seafood we enjoyed together in Baja California last summer.

A little research turned up Zecky’s Fish Tacos at 8065 Elk Grove Florin Rd., Suite 120, which I visited after getting back to the area. While Zecky’s also carries mulitas, huaraches, quesadillas and other items one can top or stuff with meat, I had seafood on the seso, and ordered just that at the South Sacramento strip mall restaurant with a beachy vibe.

Zecky’s uses swai for fish tacos ($1.65 on Tuesday and Saturday, $3.25 otherwise), which were nicely breaded and buttery with a pleasant kick from a deep red salsa. You could say the same for shrimp tacos, or get one of each with refried beans, veggie-flecked rice and a drink (try the pulpy cantaloupe aguafresca) for $9.25.

It’s been years since I had a Mexican-style shrimp cocktail ($11 for a medium, $14 for a large), and Zecky’s was a fine reintroduction. Big, plump shrimp floated under a layer of avocado in a ketchup-forward mixture, scooped out from their plastic cup by a tostada or cracker.

Openings & Closings

• Fast-casual Asian fusion chain Teriyaki Madness made its area debut at 289 3rd St. in West Sacramento on April 7. It’s franchised to the Gallagher family, which has owned a rice farm about 30 miles north of the restaurant for 150 years.
• Miami-influenced downtown Sacramento nightclub Bungalow Lounge held its grand opening earlier this month at 908 15th St., Suite B. It takes up some of Republic Sports Bar & Grill’s old space and shares a couple owners, Bob Simpson and Jesse Barnes, as well as Ernesto Torres and Jason Ojeda of Parkside Bar & Lounge in Davis.
• Kick’n Mule Sports Bar & Restaurant is expanding from West Sacramento to Folsom Creek shopping center, the Sacramento Business Journal reported. The 5-year-old sports bar carries more than 25 Moscow Mule varieties and will eventually open in La Bou Bakery & Cafe‘s old space at 13385 Folsom Blvd., Suite 900.

This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM.