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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — How do you take your coffee? How about flavored with rum minus the actual alcohol? What about a lesson with your latte? If the sound of that woke you up before your morning coffee, you’ll want to hear about a local coffee shop cranking out a coffee concept by the barrels.

David Hogg is the co-owner of Hogg Batch coffee shop. Starting from a green coffee bean housed in this aged barrel, he gave us a step by step of how their coffee is made.

“So we do this so that we’re rotating the green beans and they’re all making contact with the surface area of the barrel,” he said. “At a high level, it’s the barrel age process, and then roasting, and then packaging.”

The coffee beans in the barrel may sound foreign to most but the roaster should be a familiar sight and sound for coffee drinkers. David said the unique process is part of the appeal.

“A big part of our business model is we do this limited release model so we’re constantly introducing new flavors, what we call experiments with our barrel age products monthly,” he said.

That process allows the coffee beans to pick up the flavors of whatever was housed in the barrels before it like whiskey, rum or rosé. It’s much fancier than the original batch David made.

“I started out roasting in a cast iron pan on top of my stove at home,” he said. “I came across a tradition, an Ethiopian tradition where in Eithopia when you have guests over your house, they roast typically roast the coffee fresh and brew it to order for guests and they roast in a cast iron pan.”

Once David discovered Ethiopia was the birthplace of coffee, the shop's influence with their blends became as strong as a large cup of coffee.

It’s something his twin brother, Duane got on board with too.

“We actually started at a market,” Duane said. “The first time we ever released our stuff to the public outside of friends and family was at a indie flea market, and we almost sold out there, so that’s kind of what launched it.”

That launch resulted in a retail space called Brew Bar and Retail Store, located at 2327 Central Avenue in St. Petersburg.  During the height of the pandemic, the brothers say online sales kept business booming.

Duane said it also provided an opportunity to wake up their customers with a particular blend of coffee flavored with a little education. Every month, someone different is on their Black history blend.

“The goal of this collection is really to just to highlight the origin of coffee which is Africa and highlight that really good coffee coming out of Africa," Duane said. "Along with these historical Black figures and keep that narrative going all year long around black history."

This month, it’s mathematician and Nasa Scientist, Katherine Johnson. The month Before that it was St. Pete’s first Black mayor, Ken Welch — inside the bag is African sourced coffee beans.

It’s not your average cup of morning joe, but it’s one the Hogg brothers say will no doubt still give that jolt of caffeine.

The Hogg brothers still work full time jobs, so they open up their coffee shop on the weekends.