Espresso and Beer Pulled Pork Recipe - Tampa Style

I truly have a love affair with my slow cooker. I prepare everything the night before, turn it on in the morning and there is only one pot to clean up. I tend to do something in the slow cooker on Monday's, as that is a night we run. By the time I get home, I am mentally spent and the most amount of work I want to do is open a bottle of wine. It's easy to have everything there waiting for you. I have been experimenting a lot with pulled pork and different flavors.

I came up with a recipe to make Espresso rubbed pulled pork when I saw Cigar City Brewing's Cubano-Style Espresso Beer. Cigar City Brewery is located in Tampa and they get their beans roasted at Mazzaro's Market in St. Petersburg. I knew I had to do some sort of dry rub on the pork, so keeping with the local Tampa flair, I used my favorite coffee as part the rub, NavierA Cafe Con Leche. NavierA (or El Molino) is located in Ybor City on historic 7th Avenue, where they mill and distribute their coffee.

Two Tampa ingredients - Cigar City Brewing Cubano-Style Espresso Beer & NavierA Cafe Con Leche

I completely winged this recipe and it ended up very good.

Serves 4
Ingredients:
2-3lb pork shoulder
1 tbl espresso
2 tbl brown sugar
1 tbl chili powder
salt and pepper
1 bottle of Cigar City Brewing Cubano Style Espresso - OR - 1 can of Guinness 
Sweet Baby Rays Sweet and Spicy BBQ sauce (the savory and sweet really works with this sauce)
Whole Grain Texas Toast

The night before, combine the dry ingredients and give your pork shoulder a nice rub down. Place in the slow cooker pan with no liquid, cover and refrigerate overnight.  In the morning, Set up your slow cooker, pour in the beer and place on low for 8 hours.

After it has cooked for 8 hours, drain the liquid out of the slow cooker, reserving 1/2 a cup. Shred your pork, you should be able to do this without any effort. Slowly pour back the reserved liquid, a little at a time. Do not pour it all in, this is to bring moisture back into the pork so us your judgement. You do not want it soaked. Add BBQ sauce to taste and put back on low for 30 minutes. Serve on Texas Toast instead of plain bread! You can add a slice of cheese or coleslaw if you choose.

@irun4wine Espresso and Beer Pulled Pork