Obsession: Mercantile’s Almond Milk

If there’s anything that can turn my harried mornings into productive ones, it’s the calming and restorative powers of Mercantile Dining & Provision‘s almond milk. The Union Station eatery makes a batch each day, all by the simple but can’t-be-hurried process of soaking Marcona almonds overnight. The water-saturated nuts are then blended with dates and the mixture is carefully strained. The result is creamy and dense lightly flavored nut milk. “There’s not much more to it than that,” chef-owner Alex Seidel says. “We actually use the leftover pulp—which there’s a lot of—to make gluten-free crackers.”

You can drink the milk on its own, of course, but my favorite way to enjoy it is in a chamomile-lavender tea latte. Mercantile’s baristas steam and steep the almond milk with Denver-based MoonDance Botanicals’ blend. Created specifically for Mercantile and Fruition (Seidel’s first restaurant), the tea is made up of nearly equal parts chamomile and lavender, Tonya Reichley, MoonDance’s owner, says. Rather than ground chamomile, which can taste dusty, Reichley, uses whole organic chamomile flowers. The tea is softly floral and herbaceous—a perfect match for Mercantile’s creamy almond milk.

Tip: Mercantile also sells MoonDance’s loose tea blend by the ounce in the restaurant’s market section.

Bonus: Intrigued enough to make your own almond milk? Try this recipe from Oh She Glows cookbook author and blogger Angela Liddon.

1701 Wynkoop St., 720-460-3733

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