A Coffee Syrup Story
In early 2020, my wife and I found ourselves with two young kids, a growing online business, and a moderate caffeine addiction. We had no idea that the upcoming pandemic would cause drastic changes not only to our business, but also to our family life. Many stories have been written focusing on the negative aspects of that time period, but I also wanted to shed light on some of the positives that came out of it for my family. It was a formative season indeed, and we had no idea that it would result in us doubling the number of children in our home in less than a year, or that a new ingredient created out of necessity would help bring our family closer together and add a bit of joy to our household during such a troubling period.
Late January 2020
After the first U.S. case of Covid-19 was confirmed on January 21, 2020, I will always remember the first clue I witnessed that foreshadowed the massive changes ahead. A friend sent me a video of thousands of workers in China speed-building the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan. They ended up building it in just 10 days. I was transfixed by the coordination of the excavators and machinery, but I had no inkling that the speed of the construction would soon be dwarfed by the rapid spread of the virus already growing across the globe and moving into the U.S.
When the virus first began spreading, we, like most people, stocked up on what we thought we needed from the grocery store. We had no idea that some seemingly random items would become extremely difficult to find in short order, including toilet paper. I began keeping a journal during that time, and looking back, it is amazing how blind I was to the severity of the situation in those early days.
At first, our daily routines did not change drastically. We continued to operate our business, drop our oldest child off at school, since he was in pre-K, and raise our younger son at home. But as the virus continued to spread, we realized we had a real problem on our hands. Our caffeine addiction was primarily supported by local coffee shops. If those shut down, we would lose the comfort of our daily latte and macchiato. Believe it or not, this quickly became one of our top priorities. I ordered a Breville espresso machine as an abundance of caution. Spoiler alert: we ended up needing it.
A Learning Curve
By April 1, most local businesses were shut down. Neither my wife nor I had any barista training, so we did what any other self-respecting millennial would do: we started from scratch and used YouTube to learn the basics. We purchased a few different espresso brands online to see what we liked, and eventually found one we both enjoyed. The one thing we continually had trouble finding, though, was coffee syrup. We started off by purchasing vanilla syrup from a large coffee chain, but over time, pandemic shortages affected even our favorite syrup, so we began looking for other options.
Then I remembered that we had access to Madagascar vanilla beans through our online shop. I began researching dozens of syrup recipes, and before long, I had turned our house into a budget version of America’s Test Kitchen.
My wife and I each consumed one to two espresso creations per day. That gave me plenty of opportunities to test different recipes. My wife is much pickier than I am, so she got the better drinks while I ended up drinking the rejects. As usual, she helped set the bar high. She wanted only the best natural ingredients, and that standard pushed me to slowly learn, adjust, and improve over time. By late 2020, she was pregnant and too nauseous for her daily drink, but she remained supportive through it all. Our third child was born in September 2021. Three months later, my wife was pregnant again.
Creating Together
With my wife unable to be as fully involved for a season, I began having my boys help with syrup tests and new creations. This became a fantastic bonding experience, even though they were not old enough to drink coffee. You would never know that by the look of complete joy and pride on their faces after helping me come up with a new recipe or make my morning latte.
We finally mastered our vanilla syrup recipe and began launching into other variations. As the lockdowns ended, I started making lattes and macchiatos for family and friends who visited our home. They offered feedback, and in return I supplied them with bottles of syrup. I fell in love with the process, not only of making coffee syrup for my own homemade drinks, but also of creating something other people could enjoy in their own homes. That exchange of creativity, feedback, and hospitality was instrumental in helping our skills grow.
The funny thing was, it almost completely ruined our coffee shop visits. It was tastier and cheaper to make the drinks at home, and we could customize drinks and recipes to fit our own personal tastes. Those same factors still draw me to homemade espresso today. Over the years, we began developing online recipes and videos for others to follow in our footsteps. It has become part of our mission to help people discover how easy, creative, and genuinely fun it can be to make coffee creations at home.
A New Perspective
All of us were impacted in some way by that period. In addition to the deaths, we all know people who were affected not only by the virus itself, but also by the isolation and time lost because of the lack of human contact. Now, six years later, I have all four of my amazing kids helping me experiment and come up with new flavors. The coffee syrup that began as something we made for family and friends is now a quickly expanding labor of love that has become its own product line.
We are still incredibly thankful for every person who cares enough to support our small business. We remain committed to offering coffee syrup made with the best ingredients rather than artificial flavors. What began as a simple solution during a difficult season became something much bigger: a creative outlet, a family tradition, and a new direction for our business. We hope the world is done with global pandemics for a long time, and we look forward to continuing to grow our love of coffee into new areas while sharing that passion with others.
About the Author:
Brandon owns and operates the e-commerce shop Lone Goose Bakery with his amazing wife, Rachel. After launching the company in 2017 to provide high-quality baking ingredients, they have now expanded the brand to focus on offering small-batch coffee syrups using natural ingredients. They continue to encourage others to make homemade coffee creations with their free recipes and videos. Brandon and Rachel look forward to continuing to spread their love of coffee and appreciate all the support and connections they have built over the years.
Website: LoneGooseBakery.com
Coffee Syrup Collection: Shop the Syrups
YouTube: @lonegoosebakery
Recommended Reading: Bittersweet Grounds
