I have discovered that most of the "frou-frou" in fancy coffee comes from the additives. I just buy good quality coffee and a fancy-dancy creamer....or a couple of those flavored additives ( can't remember the brand name and am too lazy to look in the cupboard) and a shot of that pressurized whipped cream. There is a faux Bailey's Irish Cream non alcoholic creamer that makes me swoon!

Yes, try the Torani syrups, they even come in sugar-free. Last I looked, Cost Plus World Market carried a whole selection of flavors. (FWIW, I detest flavoring in my coffee, and 'frou-frou' would refer to beans from various parts of the world. In other words, I'm a Peet's person not a Starbucks fan.)

I take it that by 'flavored coffee', you mean the coffee grounds themselves are flavored, rather than adding flavored syrups or creamers? Gevalia (sp?) used to have some that were very good. I especially liked the Amaretto. I haven't ordered from them in years, so I don't know if they still have them, or if they are still good. I think I've seen some Gevalia coffees in Walmart, but haven't paid attention to what flavors.

I'm sort of a coffee addict. My favorite for my 'every morning' coffee is Dunkin Donuts', either French Roast or Dunkin Dark. I brew it pretty strong, and fill a Starbucks Frappachino bottle or two with it, and keep it in the refrigerator. Then when the urge for a 'frou-frou' coffee hits, I pour a glass full, add some flavored creamer and ice, sit back and enjoy. Or, I can put it in a cup, add the creamer, and heat it up in the microwave. Much cheaper than buying the 'real' thing, and a much larger choice of flavors available.

Rusty

Rusty, I meant flavored built into beans but I would consider the syrups. I remember Gevalia, did not know they did frou frou. How long does coffee concentrate lasts in fridge? DH hates ff coffee but every Sunday he'll brew a pot as s treat for me. We've run out and he can't disguise his delight. Ha

Yes, I thought you meant flavor in the beans. After mentioning Gevalia, I had to check it out, they do still have flavored coffees. And they have Pumpkin Spice! "Way back when", when I ordered from them, I really liked their coffees. But, as I said, that's been a number of years ago, so I don't know if I would still think they are good or not.

As for how long brewed coffee will last in the fridge, I don't know. The longest I have kept it was a week or so. Maybe 10 days, I'm not real sure. It's not actually a concentrate, it's just the strong brew that I like. Strong enough so that the coffee flavor still comes through the flavored creamer I add.

Rusty

I almost never drink coffee, but if I wanted to add flavor, I would add a bit of liqueur, such as Frangelico, Amaretto, Kahlua, etc. Irish coffee is made by adding Irish Whiskey, but I only use that in making desserts. I personally do not like the Torani syrups, but I have tried them mostly with sparkling water instead of coffee, and they tasted very artificial, unlike liqueurs.

I recently bought some pecan liqueur, which I really like, and it tastes just like pecans - perhaps not appropriate for coffee, however. I also found some Nocello, which is supposed to be walnut liqueur, but it also has hazelnuts in it and tastes more like Frangelico, which I like, but I was hoping for something different. I also have Godiva chocolate liqueur, which would be good in coffee. Kahlua now makes several different flavors - Mocha is one of my favorites, but they also make hazelnut, which I like.

I hate the flavored beans because, like Lars I can taste the artificial in the flavoring. I really don't want booze in my morning coffee but find that a bit of real cinnamon or almond extract or a half teaspoon of coco powderw ortks.....and I really don't mind the Torani hazlenut.
I once went to an awesome coffee party, where the hostess had a couple of pots of good strong coffee and assortments of add-ins and directions and suggestions for mixing. One combination that was really good was dark chocolate shavings and grated orange peel....mit schlag of course...;-)

Not frou-frou, but my favorite coffee is now cold brew. DH knows I love really strong coffee with cream and told me he had a really good cold brew at Starbucks a few months ago. He told me I'd love it, so next time we went out, he bought one for each of us. He was right. I really enjoyed it. Then I asked him how much he paid for the two - $12!!!!! I told him that's the last cold brew HE'LL buy, LOL. I started making our own after checking out at least a dozen different recipes. It took a while, but I settled on a formula that is working for us and in my opinion, tastes better than the SB cold brew. I grind 3 cups of French roast beans (yes, 3!), put them in a half-gallon canning jar, add enough very warm tap water to soak the grounds, stir and let it set for about a half-hour, then fill the jar to the top with cold water. Put a lid on it and let it set in the fridge for four days. Then I use my French press to separate the grounds from the liquid gold. I pour that into a pitcher and add enough water to make 48 ounces (I know, a half-gallon is 64 ounces, but a LOT of that half-gallon was grounds). I immediately grind another 3 cups of beans because the batch I just made is only going to last four days. After chilling again, I put 1 and 1/2 cups of concentrate into a 4-cup measuring cup, add, 1/2 cup half and half and 1/2 cup whole milk and a bit of sweetener. This gives each of us a 10 ounce cup of cold brew in our travel cups. I savor that cup, because that is the only coffee I'll need that day, LOL. I figured out that it costs me about $1 per 10 ounce cup and I can live with that.

Like sushipup, we are Peets' Coffee people, but many years ago I ended up with a bottle of Bitters from a Post Doctorial Fellow from Belgium. Not being a real drinker, I didn't know what to do with it until I read that people put it in coffee. A little splash works great; a little like I suspect Amaretto would taste.

I was always disappointed with the flavored coffee beans because the coffee itself wasn't very good. It wasn't strong enough to balance the artificial flavors added to the beans. As others have said, I've had better luck with adding either the flavored syrups like Torani or using the flavored creamers found in the dairy section of most grocery stores.

That said, I find the creamers are too sweet for my tastes. By the time I get the creaminess I want, the coffee is way to sweet for me to enjoy. So now I brew an extra strong cup of coffee and add a couple of sprinkles of a spice blend (KAF gingerbread & pumpkin pie spice are my favorites) to the bottom of the cup. Then I add cream/half & half and some sweetener. That way I get the flavor, creaminess, and sweetness level I want.

The advantage to using syrups, spice blends, and flavored creamers is that you have options: several different flavors available to choose from whenever you want a "frou-frou" experience. And yet you can still enjoy a plain cup of coffee too.

I love all the liqueurs you mention but have not liked them in coffee, and certainly not in the am, after dinner drink, perhaps OK. Flavored creamers or any creamer like coffee Mate upset my stomach something fierce.

ETA can drink hot and cold tea but cannot stomach cold coffee

Thank you Donnia for your cold brew coffee. I've copied it.

I like cinnamon flavor in my coffee. I don't use any syrups or creamers. I was already buying cinnamon chips from Mountain Rose Herbs and on a whim one day, tossed a handful into the coffee storage container when I opened my newest bag of regular coffee. I use a drip coffee maker. The flavor is just perfect for me, not too strong, and certainly not artificial. The coffee gets its flavor both from the cinnamon in the coffee container as well as the drip process. This would also work with vanilla beans, I think. I had a little trouble using ground spices, though because the fineness of the ground spice will clog up the coffee filter. I don't have that effect with the larger cinnamon chips.

You put a pinch of cinnamon or coco in the pot before you drip the coffee into it if you are afraid of clogging the filter. But I have never had any trouble with a little cinnamon clogging a filter.

You must be putting a lot more liqueur in your coffee than I do - I never add more than about two teaspoons. I often put liqueur on ice cream that I may have at lunch, and it does not affect me, but again it is a very small amount.

Lots of recipes called 'copycats' on-line for just about every flavor you like. The Starbucks flavorings are syrups and full of artificial stuff. Making your own will be pure spices. Not unlike a homemade hot chocolate mix where you can control the ingredients.

A friend of mine is an ice cream freak. Always has a half dozen pints and adds the seasonal ones to her coffee after warming a big tbsp in here microwave.

Funny though, i don't care for flavored coffee but i like a bit of ice cream once in a while. Not in my coffee. I like my coffee black, no sugars.

Here are some recipes....coffee flavorings

One of my favorite ice cream recipes uses expresso powder, cocoa, coconut palm sugar that is a bit like brown sugar, almond and coconut milk instead of whole milk. A bit like a caramel mocha coffee....i add chopped pecans or shaved dark chocolate later rather than mixed in. Dad like chopped up chocolate covered pretzels for that sweet/salty.

I suppose I'm in the minority these days but I don't want my coffee to be a variation of hot chocolate. I don't want all that sugar and stuff in there. The North American diet is so sugar dependent it's passed on to coffee, vegetables and everything else. (Heavy sigh) A good cup of coffee, hot and plenty of refills. But alas, these days trying to find something other than foofoo is not easy. Used to be a full aisle of coffee cans, now there's about 6. No K-cups for me. Give me my percolator. Yeah I know I'm different, but I also like mashed potatoes to be POTATOES. Don't need it filled with cheese, sugar and other fillers.

I wrote an article about 5 great small coffee roasters that coffee lovers swear by for Patch of Earth. Here's the link

Except for the pumpkin latte at Starbucjs, a treat during November, I don't sweeten my coffee. But b/c i don't really care for it, a cup with a hint of vanilla, hazelnut or whatever is my preference. DH is the coffee addict and he makes the daily pot. When he travels no coffee is made and I don't miss it one bit.

Tried two drops of Penseys vanilla in my reg coffee and it made it bitter. Gross, had to dump it

That's because you had no sugar with it.

I also like my coffee black, cynic, and don't even know how to use Ashley's k-cup coffee maker, she wants all that flavored stuff. I do like the local Biggby Coffee breakfast blend, but have started just buying beans and roasting my own coffee as I don't like Folgers or Maxwell House or Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts. I have a percolator, but really like the Chemex best.

I will plead guilty to a caramel mocha about twice a year, when I want something sweet and thick. I'm not an ice cream fan, particularly, so I get that when others are getting shakes or sundaes.

No liquor as I detest the stuff in any amount, and no cold coffee. Like cynic, I want it hot and I want it black. Elery does like iced coffee in the summer, though, so I make some cold brew for him sometimes. Thanks for the directions, Donna.

My girls and my mother? They'll put half a cup of flavored cream and half a cup of coffee. Fine with me, I even buy the creamer, LOL. My mother's favorite is raspberry/white chocolate, and I stock up when I find it so she can get her "fix". Other times she drinks her coffee black, you just never know what her mood is going to be.

LindaC, a local coffee company used to have a cinnamon flavored coffee and I loved it. Now it tastes different, so they probably "cheaped" it in some way. Putting a spoonful of cinnamon in my coffee pot is OK and did not mess up the filter, but doesn't taste right either. It wasn't sweet, but it wasn't astringent. Or maybe my taste buds have just changed...

Annie

If you don't mind another gadget in your kitchen, you might look in to the Toddy cold water extractor. It does exactly what donna was talking about, but it's a little more convenient. It basically is a plastic container which has a filter in its bottom; fill the container with ground coffee and cold water, and after a day or so drain it into the decanter. You can then make either iced coffee (just add ice water to the extract) or hot coffee (add boiling water) and you can vary the extract-to-water ratio to suit your taste.

Because the coffee oils rise to the top and are caught by the grounds when you drain the extract into the decanter, the resultant extract is smooth as silk. Deceptively so, because just about all the caffeine is extracted and after a couple of cups of this smooth as silk coffee you might find yourself a tad jumpy. You can also use the extract to make your own Kahlua, and the extract is great for recipes that call for coffee flavoring (ice cream, stouts, frostings)--infinitely better than using instant coffee as a flavoring.

The extract will go bad in the fridge after five days or so, but you could freeze it in ice cube trays and you just use a cube or two to make your coffee. You might want to have some specialized coffees (flavored, decaf, whatever) made as extract cubes so you could have one cup without having to make a whole pot.

I'm embarrassed to say I'm too lazy to do like Donna. Got 8:00 brand hazelnut coffee and disappointed. Still looking

Arley, I did start with one of those toddy extractors, but I found it to be more work and it takes up a lot more space than the French press and takes a lot longer to strain, since it only uses gravity. I don't wish to waste ANY of the extract, so I ended up using a cloth bag as a filter so I could squeeze out every ounce. It ended up being a lot of work as well as messy. I know lots of people love it. It just wasn't for me, so now it's sitting in my pantry gathering dust.

I'm late to the party on this one, but a product I buy and use is Teeccino herbal "coffee" which I started drinking because I can no longer drink my beloved tea due to a bladder condition. I don't much care for the low acid coffee, but when I mix it with this product it is better. They have vanilla nut and a couple of other flavors but I only like the hazelnut. I add it to regular coffee, about 1/4 Teeccino and 3/4 coffee, or 1/3 Teeccino to 2/3 coffee depending on how strong of a flavor you want. It is very good, IMHO, and all natural. You can get it mail order through Amazon, which is how I have to get it in my small rural town. http://www.amazon.com/Teeccino-Caffeine-Free-Herbal-Mediterranean-Hazelnut/dp/B00N9ULEC6/ref=sr_1_10_s_it?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1461792593&sr=1-10&keywords=teeccino