The Practice Round | Golf, Coffee & Culture
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The
Practice
Round
From Scratch Shot
Out in the wild
Scratch Shot has spent a little more time out on the course lately.
Over the past few weeks our coffee has found its way into golf bags, customer orders and a very good golf day. Which, really, is the point.
We started Scratch Shot because coffee and golf already go together, whether it’s the early alarm, the drive to the course, the clubhouse briefing or the flask in the bag.
We’re just trying to make the coffee part a bit better.
Here’s what we’ve been up to.
Adam
Founder, Scratch Shot
In good company
Scratch Shot
× No Return Club
Coffee to go with your tees.
A little while ago, we sent our friends at No Return Club a load of Scratch Shot coffee. They’ve been slipping it into customer orders, so a few golfers opening a box of tees have also found something unexpected waiting inside.
A bag of coffee for the next early tee time.
No Return Club is exactly the sort of independent golf brand we like. It takes something familiar, does it differently and doesn’t take the game too seriously in the process.
Sound familiar?
Brands we love
New look.
Same No Return.
And while we’re talking about No Return Club, they’ve just changed things up. The brand has unveiled a new identity and logo, giving No Return a fresh look as it keeps building its own corner of modern golf.
The new mark is cleaner and sleeker, and it carries the same not-like-the-establishment attitude to golf that drew us to them in the first place.
We’re big believers in independent brands putting their own stamp on the game, so naturally this caught our eye.
Behind the coffee
Meet Mió
The farm behind Front Nine.
Fazenda Mió, Monte Santo de Minas, Brazil
Every bag of Front Nine starts a long way from the first tee.
It begins at Fazenda Mió in Monte Santo de Minas, Brazil, a region now regarded as one of the best coffee-producing areas in the country. The farm sits at 900 to 1,100 metres, between the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes.
Mió is a female-led company focused on sustainability, direct trade and high-quality speciality coffee. Of the farm’s 1,589 hectares, the land not used for processing is split equally between coffee trees and native forest reserve. Every step from farm to roaster is tracked, down to satellite imagery.
The coffee in Front Nine is Yellow Catuaí, naturally processed. The cherry dries with the fruit still around the seed, using little to no water. That is where the sweetness and the creamy body come from.
It is why we chose it. Front Nine is speciality coffee, but it isn’t built to need a tasting wheel or a coffee qualification. It is smooth, approachable and naturally sweet. Really good coffee you’ll keep coming back to.
Speciality coffee
without the homework.
From the course · The Presidents Cup, Medinah
Sunday singles.
Nowhere to hide.
Going into Sunday at Medinah, the Internationals led 10.5 to 7.5. Three points is a lot to find in a day. The Americans found them anyway, taking 9.5 of the 12 singles points to win 17 to 13.
That’s why team golf is so good to watch. For three days it’s foursomes and fourballs, partners covering for each other. On Sunday it strips back to one player against another, with the whole team watching from the side of the green.
Out on the course
Scratch
Shot ×
3PUTT
The Autumn Social.
Last month we joined 3PUTT for their Autumn Social at The Hertsmere.
Scratch Shot went into every player’s bag, with a few extra prizes up for grabs throughout the day.
Good golf. Questionable golf. Very good company.
Exactly the sort of day we started Scratch Shot to be part of.
Coming next month
The Christmas Round is coming
For the golfer who really doesn’t need another box of balls.
We’re putting together a limited run of Scratch Shot Christmas gift boxes, built around some of our favourite ways to make better coffee.
Think Front Nine, AeroPress, V60 and everything you need to get dialled in, whether that’s before an early tee time or on a weekend golf trip.
Next up
Something’s brewing in the clubhouse.
We’ve started working on an idea we’ve wanted to explore since launching Scratch Shot: coffee created specifically for golf clubs.
Not just another bag on the shelf. Something made with the club, for its members, and served where golf coffee actually gets drunk.
We’re working on the first one now.
More soon.
That’s
the round.
See you next month.
Adam
Founder, Scratch Shot
Dial it in.
The
Practice
Round
A note to start
We picked quite a week to launch…
Scratch Shot officially went live during Open week. Probably appropriate for a coffee brand built around golf, although watching the best players in the world navigate a major championship is also a fairly effective reminder that even the best-laid plans don’t always survive contact with a golf course.
For us, it marked the end of months spent obsessing over coffee, packaging, labels, websites and all the other things you don’t necessarily think about when you decide it might be fun to start a coffee brand. And the beginning of actually putting Scratch Shot into people’s hands.
A lot has happened since.
From the first tee
Scratch Shot
× 3PUTT Club
One of the things we wanted to do with Scratch Shot from the beginning was take the coffee beyond the bag and make it part of the golfing experience. So we’re very excited to be joining 3PUTT Club as a confirmed sponsor of its Autumn Social at The Hertsmere Golf Club on Sunday 13 September.
Created by 3puttpalms, 3PUTT Club has built a brilliant community around a slightly less serious side of golf, which feels very much up our street. We’ll be there before the first tee time serving freshly made Scratch Shot coffee as everyone arrives, meets the rest of the group and gets ready for the round.
And every golfer will be heading home with a complimentary bag of Scratch Shot Coffee, with some extra Scratch Shot goodies finding their way onto the prize table too. It’s exactly the sort of thing we created the brand for.
Coffee already has a natural place in golf: the early start, the drive to the course, meeting in the clubhouse before a round. We just think the coffee in those moments deserves as much attention as the rest of your setup. Our first sponsored golf day. Hopefully the first of many.
Running a golf day? We’d love to bring the coffee.
On the airwaves
We featured on The Golfing Mind
We also recently had the opportunity to feature on The Golfing Mind podcast. We talked coffee, golf, the thinking behind Scratch Shot and why we thought there was room for a speciality coffee brand built specifically around the game.
It’s always slightly strange hearing yourself talk about something that began as an idea in a notebook, but we’re delighted to have been invited on.
New in the pro shop
Coffee. Sorted.
We’ve added a couple of new ways to get started with better coffee. Our new brewing bundles combine a bag of Front Nine with some of our favourite brewing kit.
Weekend Golf Trip
Front Nine + AeroPress + filters
Compact, virtually indestructible and easy to throw into the golf bag or suitcase. Everything you need for considerably better hotel-room coffee.
Early Tee Time
Front Nine + Hario V60 + filters
For when you’ve got ten minutes before leaving for the course and instant coffee isn’t going to cut it.
Brands we love
No Return Club
Golf is going through a bit of a renaissance at the moment, and one of the things we love is discovering smaller independent brands doing interesting things around the game. This month: No Return Club. They make golf tees and accessories that are considerably better looking than they have any right to be.
We’ve also been talking to the guys behind the brand about doing a few things together, so keep an eye out. And if a No Return Club order happens to land on your doorstep soon, you might just find some Scratch Shot in there too.
In the bag
Front Nine
Nutty. Chocolate. Creamy.
If you’re new to Scratch Shot, this is probably the place to start. Front Nine is our smooth, approachable everyday coffee, built around a naturally processed Yellow Catuaí from Fazenda Mió in Brazil.
It’s deliberately not the kind of speciality coffee that requires a tasting wheel and a qualification to enjoy. It’s sweet, rich and incredibly easy to drink, whether you’re using an espresso machine, AeroPress, cafetière or V60.
A little about Mió
Fazenda Mió is a family-owned coffee farm in Monte Santo de Minas, Brazil. The coffee we use for Front Nine is naturally processed, meaning the coffee cherry is dried with the fruit still surrounding the seed. It’s part of what helps develop the sweetness, body and chocolatey character we love about the coffee.
For us, sourcing great coffee isn’t about making it unnecessarily complicated. It’s about knowing where it comes from, working with people who care about what they’re producing and ultimately putting something genuinely delicious in the cup.
Fazenda Mió, Monte Santo de Minas, Brazil
Meet Front Nine →That’s the round
It’s been a busy few weeks.
We’ve launched a brand, sent a lot of coffee through the post, appeared on a podcast, started working with some brilliant people in golf and somehow found ourselves sponsoring our first golf day. And we’re really only getting started.
Thank you to everyone who’s bought a bag, tried a sample, followed us, shared something we’ve posted or simply told somebody about Scratch Shot. It makes a bigger difference to a new independent brand than you might imagine.
See you next month.
Adam
Founder, Scratch Shot Coffee
Dial it in.