Melbourne's best cold coffee creations

Had enough cold-drip, Melbourne? As summer ends with a February meltdown, check these chilled coffee innovations.

Viet-style iced coffee

Asian-fusion cafe Nora in Carlton wins the most creative cold coffee drink for their Saigon: a double shot of Small Batch Candyman poured into a glass of pandan-infused milk, with a swirl of coconut sugar syrup for sweetness and a splodge of coconut whey from making coconut ricotta standing in for ice-cream. The pandan gives it a whiff of faintly smoky bamboo-steamer, while the coconut whey adds creamy mouthfeel. The Candyman espresso is the solid coffee backbone.

156 Elgin Street, Carlton

Cold drip variation

Cold drip coffee – brewed with cold water dripping slowly through ground coffee for six, eight or even 24 hours – is served all over town in all kinds of variations. We like the twist at Il Melograno in Northcote: a 12-hour brew of Ricci Method wood-fire roasted beans served with a slice of lime and a side of tonic water. The tonic gives it a lovely bitter kick, and there's a delicious limey nose in the glass. Melograno is also about to present jasmine cold-drip coffee – made with an infusion of jasmine pearl tea rather than water – and another cold-drip made with star anise.

76 High Street, Northcote

Affogato

Gelateria Primavera in Spring Street offers a classic version of this, er, classic – a shot of Italian Romcaffe poured over a scoop of milky fior di latte gelato. Says gelato maker Massimo Bidin: "It's the best way to have both flavours together – you get the hot and cold, the different textures and when the gelato melts it becomes creamy." At 5 Lire in North Melbourne the affogato comes as a shot of Locale espresso beside a scoop of torrone-flavoured gelato – creamy and nutty as well as coffee-flavoured.

157 Spring Street, Melbourne and 116 Errol Street, North Melbourne

Coffee ice-cream

Lots of Melbourne's artisan gelaterias do a coffee-flavoured scoop, but Billy Van Creamy – a van with a pozzetti system installed that roams the northern suburbs – takes it a step further, using an Industry Beans espresso blend. "The guys at Industry spend about an hour pulling espresso shots for us once or twice a week," says Billy Van's Alex Wells, to make 12 litres of ice-cream. At 120 grams a scoop that's around … you do the maths. If that's not enough caffeine, the van also serves Industry Beans cold drip. Check facebook.com/billyvancreamy for locations.

Cold, black, on tap

It comes out of a beer tap so you think it should be fizzy; so does English ale, and it isn't either. But this Nitro "draught" coffee – batch-brewed and kegged by Veneziano Coffee Roasters – is tap-beer cold. The flavour is of slightly watery specialty coffee with a faintly fizzy, leguminous edge (or is that my imagination? I thought nitrogen was odourless … ) Coffee HQ inside Flinders Street Station (you'll need a myki, but you get a changed-your-mind-refund on the touch on if nothing else) unfortunately serves the brew in a plastic slushie dome. The presentation will be smarter and the flavour truer at Veneziano's Bond Street cafe in the back streets of Abbotsford. Put this one down to the relentless pursuit of coffee innovation.

22 Bond Street, Abbotsford

Espresso frappuccino

An espresso shot shaken with ice cubes in a cocktail shaker is the way baristas make caffe freddo in Milan. At T-Roy Browns – the bass-pumping coffee hole in Flinders Street's iron-pumping Banana Alley – the barista pulls a double shot of Cartel Coffee Roasters espresso and shakes it with Colombian panela sugar syrup and ice cubes. On a hot summer's day you might also catch a special here, like the recent salted-caramel baby Magnum dunked in a shot of espresso – affogato on a stick.

365 Flinders Street, Melbourne

And bottled to go

Endless Iced Coffee is the local specialty version of commercial iced coffee. Barista Frankie Tan from Slater Street Bench does a 20-hour cold immersion brew of Small Batch beans – Kenyan for black coffee and Candyman for white. Try it at Shortstop, Slater Street Bench or Alice Nivens. See endlessicedcoffee.com.au

And New Zealand-based Coffee Supreme has teamed with Wellington's Six Barrel Soda Co on coffee soda syrup made with Brazilian Bob-O-Link beans and organic cane sugar. It makes a long, cool drink mixed with soda water or milk or can be poured over ice-cream for an affogato with a Kiwi accent. See coffeesupreme.com.au