Irish You a Warm Coffee

Written By Game Day

Cincinnati has always understood the pleasure of a neighborhood that is easy to walk, easy to taste, and easy to turn into a night out. This season, The Banks is leaning into that strength with two coffee-inspired cocktail tastings that feel designed for travelers and locals who like their itineraries simple, their flavors dialed in, and their cause baked into the ticket.

The concept is straightforward: buy a ticket, move through a tight cluster of venues, and sample a curated coffee cocktail at each stop. It is a mini city break in one zip code, with the Ohio River as the backdrop and a mission running quietly underneath every pour.

Both events are part of the extended programming around the Cincinnati Coffee Festival, a major fundraiser for the Ohio River Foundation, an environmental nonprofit focused on protecting and improving the Ohio River watershed through education, habitat restoration, and advocacy.

The Banks as a Travel Move

For visitors, The Banks reads like a ready-made night out. It sits between downtown and the river, built for bar-to-bar pacing, and anchored by venues that already understand pregame energy, postgame energy, and the late-evening appetite for something a little indulgent.

What makes these tastings useful in a travel sense is their structure. The experience gives you a start point, a time window, and a finite list of stops. That is the same logic that makes food halls and museum nights so appealing on a weekend away: you get variety without the friction of planning.

Both ticket pages list the event area as West Freedom Way in Cincinnati, which keeps the crawl contained and navigable.

Espresso Martini Tasting Turns a Trend Into a Tour

The espresso martini has moved from niche menu item to modern classic, and Cincinnati is treating it like a category worth exploring rather than a single drink to order and forget. The Espresso Martini Tasting ticket page lays out the entire proposition in a way that reads like a tasting flight, just distributed across three venues. Your $20 ticket includes one tasting sample at each location, and you can start anywhere and proceed in any order.

The participating stops are:

Those flavor callouts matter. They translate “signature twist” into something you can picture. Cinnamon Chocolate signals warmth and baking spice. Snickerdoodle reads like dessert without needing extra explanation. Chocolate Cherry lands in that old-school cordial lane that plays well in winter.

The Banks’ event listing frames it cleanly as a coffee-meets-cocktail-hour experience, with proceeds supporting the Ohio River Foundation.

If you are coming in from out of town, this is a strong first-night plan. It delivers three venues, three bar teams, and a single through-line flavor profile you can compare in real time.

Irish Coffee Tasting Is a St. Patrick’s Warm-Up

If espresso martinis are about energy and polish, Irish coffee is about comfort and timing. The Irish Coffee Tasting ticket page keeps the same format: $20 gets you one tasting sample at each participating location, and you can start anywhere and proceed in any order.

Zeffy lists four participating stops:

  • Holy Grail

  • Killer Queen

  • The Park

  • Moerlein Lager House

The Ohio River Foundation’s event calendar lists a larger lineup that also includes Jefferson Social and The Filson, along with the same date and a 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm window.

From a visitor’s perspective, the practical takeaway is simple: the confirmed crawl format stays the same, and the neighborhood does the heavy lifting. Irish coffee is an easy March fit in Cincinnati, especially as a prelude to St. Patrick’s Day plans, when the city’s pubs and patios start sliding back into full rhythm.

Ticket details

Zeffy’s pages include a small line that can do big work in your copy: Zeffy fundraises “to ensure 100% of your purchase goes to our mission,” and both pages offer an optional add-on donation for the Ohio River Foundation at checkout.

That is the difference between a cocktail crawl and a cocktail crawl with a clear civic angle. The Ohio River is not abstract in Cincinnati. It is scenery, infrastructure, and drinking water source. The Cincinnati Coffee Festival leans into that connection directly with its “Great water means great coffee” framing.

For travelers, this kind of benefit-driven event tends to bring out a crowd that is upbeat and invested. It also gives you a clean story to bring home: you tasted the neighborhood and contributed to the watershed that defines it.

Cincinnati’s food and drink culture has reached a point where it can host events that are tight in scope and still feel substantial. These tastings work because they do not try to be everything. They are two nights, two coffee cocktails, a walkable district, and a mission with receipts.

They also function as a gateway into the broader Cincinnati Coffee Festival, which the Ohio River Foundation describes as a major fundraiser with thousands of guests and dozens of vendors, plus programming like demonstrations and a latte art throwdown.

If you are building a weekend in Cincinnati, this is the sort of scheduled anchor that makes a trip feel intentional. Pair it with a daytime neighborhood wander, keep your dinner plans flexible, and let the riverfront do the rest.

Tickets and Practical Notes

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