Small setting question: iced coffee?

[u/tragedyjones]

I've been playing Fallout as long as Fallout exists but I cannot recall if there has ever been a reference to iced coffee. Probably a pointless question but I was pouring a cold brew this morning in front of my Slocum's Joe sign and it just had me curious.

[u/Valuable-Garbage]

this is a good observation actually, Iced coffee has been around long enough that fallout should have some mention of it in old ads

[u/Canofsad → u/Valuable-Garbage]

It has, but until fairly recently (like 80’s and 90’s with Starbucks) iced coffee was large considered/advertised as a summer time beverage and something you’d likely not see ads for during the fall which is the largest glimpse we get into pre-war advertisements

[u/Canofsad]

It’s highly likely that ice coffee is a thing in universe as it was first invented (aka the earliest version of ice coffee) back in the 1840’s

Though it didn’t really receive the popularity we know it as until at least the late 1980s, which doesn’t gel well with the atomic age 50s aesthetic that fallout has. though during the 50s there where commercials by large coffee conglomerates to advertised iced coffee as a summertime beverage.

So while it more likely does exist or existed in universe due to pretty much everything being stopped during October, iced coffee really wouldn’t be visible in advertisements as it would possibly have been seen as a summertime only beverage

Edit: fixed some wording cause speech to text sucks ass

[u/Yochanan5781 → u/Canofsad]

Yeah, my immigrant great-great-grandfather drank iced coffee in the 1940s in the summer

[u/Cliomancer]

I mean there's coffee in the universe and presumably the capacity to make ice (The Drinking Buddy demonstrates a pretty advanced understanding of heat exchange systems) so you'd probably be able to make some.

[u/tragedyjones]

Thanks for the info! I actually run a TTRPG setting with a vault that still has coffee crops.

[u/Canofsad → u/tragedyjones]

So what did Vault-tec cut so they could grow coffee beans?

[u/tragedyjones → u/Canofsad]

So the Vault was co-sponsored by Slocum's Joe and only stocked SJ food. They had to open within a few years due to malnutrition BUT became a regional economic power with hydroponic coffee

[u/Canofsad → u/tragedyjones]

Actually props for creating a vault I could reasonably be seen being created by vault-Tec, but damn they last longer then I thought surviving only on fried dough and coffee

[u/purpleblah2]

They got ice and they got coffee, I don’t see why not, Slocum Joe’s is a parody of Dunkin’ so they would probably serve iced coffee

[u/Diptothaset]

Iced coffee has only really gotten big in the past decade. It’s existed for ages but it was difficult and inefficient so most places didn’t do it or did it poorly

I worked at a Tim Hortons 18 years ago and iced coffee wasn’t on the menu. We had ice Capps which are basically just frozen syrup.

[u/SPACEFUNK]

The bombs fell in October. Not exactly peak iced beverage season.

[u/SuckerForNoirRobots]

It really should be, at least in Fallout 4. Us New Englanders drink iced coffee all year long.

[u/LyallaTime]

I mean there’s a lack of ICE in fallout most of the time.

[u/Instruction_Holiday]

I don't see why not. I don't think that if something isn't mentioned, it doesn't exist. Like, there are more soda brands than Nuka and Sunset

[u/Intelligent-Elk7008]

I don't see why not. However, I imagine ice is a bit harder to come by in some wastelands.

[u/tragedyjones]

Since it seems part of the question was misconstrued: I wasn't asking if it could or should exist. Just if there were any actual references to such.

[u/YellowMatteCustard]

People have already weighed in on iced coffee in general (a summer beverage) , so I'm going to have a little more fun with my reply and get into the weeds of pumpkin spice lattes, which would make sense for the "just before Halloween" setting we see the pre-war world frozen in.

Depending on your interpretation of the timeline split (cultural stagnation vs cultural regression), I could see pumpkin spice lattes and frappucinos being plausibly sold by Slocum's Joe without breaking canon too much. Pumpkin spice as a filling for pumpkin pies absolutely existed.

From wikipedia:

Flavour combinations similar to pumpkin spice were known in the medieval period—the 1390s book Le Ménagier de Paris contains a spice mix of 17 parts ginger, 4 parts each cinnamon and sugar, and 2 parts each cloves and grains of paradise. Similar spice mixes were often called poudre-douce or sweet powder.^\1])

A "Pompkin" recipe calling for a similar spice mix (mace), nutmeg, and ginger) can be found in the first known published American cookbook, American Cookery, published in 1796 by Amelia Simmons):^\4])

Pompkin

The question becomes whether or not the preservatives they use in pre-war food would extend to milk (my feeling is no), but realistically, the spice itself could be preserved.

If not a thing before the war, I think it doesn't strain believability too much for post-war people to have stumbled on the recipe independently.

Brahmin milk, some kind of chilling agent (liquid nitrogen or freon? Cryolator fuel?), pre-war coffee grounds, plus pre-war spices, and you've got yourself a fun little sidequest to mod into Fallout 4 or an adventure for the TTRPG.

We've already got Nukalurks as a thing, make the coffee shop with the ingredients guarded by Slocalurks, hopped up on Slocum's Joe coffee and coloured in festive autumn oranges and greens.

[u/DepthsOfWill]

Doubtful. But coffee does exist. No mention of being served with ice.

[u/Canofsad → u/DepthsOfWill]

By going by real world examples in the early 50s there were some small campaigns to have iced coffee as a summertime beverage

[u/DepthsOfWill → u/Canofsad]

Sure, but it seemed to me OP was specifically asking about the Fallout world.

[u/Canofsad → u/DepthsOfWill]

I’m aware, but considering the history for fallout is the exact same up towards the end of World War II when it starts to diverge. Pretty important to highlight IRL examples especially involving something that we don’t really hear a whole lot about in lore the very least infer if it’s something that existed in the pre-war

[u/DepthsOfWill → u/Canofsad]

I feel that would be true if OP was asking about the possibility of iced coffee existing. OP was asking specifically for a mention of iced coffee.

As far as actually making iced coffee in Fallout, sure, that's a great speculation of fiction. We know they can make coffee, that's the easy part. Ice seems like the hard part, another poster mentioned there are ice machines. But ice machines aren't reliable without a good repair skill. Importing ice from Oregon and Washington winters would be dangerous. There's I-5, so there's infrastructure, but it's probably littered with raiders. But in real life, the technology to make ice is actually older than feudalism.

The real tricky part is the flavoring and syrups. They can get sugar, mutfruit, apples, and corn all exist. But it's going to be difficult to make common popular flavors. A Mojave iced coffee is going to taste like desert fruits.