Caveman Coffee Aims To Energize With Its Butter Fueled Brews

“I would say the quality and the care and the concern of the Earth and ecosystems and the people we are in contact with we value and honor,” Fletcher said. “And a lot of brands when they get way big can’t do that anymore.”

“We have a small farm in Colombia that we use and a small farm in Brazil that are our two main sources and then we roast those beans in Albuquerque and send them out from there.”

Fletcher said Caveman pays strict attention to the quality of the plants, and the way the coffee is grown and harvested so “we’re not buying broad expanses of the cheapest coffees that we can find.”

Fletcher said his years as an athlete pushed him to focus on nutrition, leading him to paleolithic (meat, vegetables, nuts, fruits and roots) and later ketogenic (generally fats over sugars and carbohydrates) diets.

Fletcher’s business partners in Caveman, which has a worldwide presence through its internet sales, are fellow pro fighter Keith Jardine of Albuquerque and fitness trainer Lacie Mackey, formerly communications manager with the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce.

“My passion with my own health and nourishment became something that I wanted to share with people, and the sharing of this kind of became these coffee shops,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher, who has something of a confident Jesse Ventura aura about him, and his partners opened the tiny Caveman outlet on Flagman Way about three years ago as a hole-in-the-wall adjunct to his Undisputed fitness center at the same address. That was followed a year ago by the much larger shop on West Water Street, which also serves beer and wine and fruit-smoothies at a 10-seat bamboo-counter bar.

“We are a coffee shop, we are a smoothie bar, and we are also a taproom,” said Luis Castillo, who manages both Caveman sites.

The Water Street site was once home to a laundry, a tattoo parlor and most notably the Tin Star Saloon.

That outlet also offers a lounge-like atmosphere with Wi-Fi access and counters, pool and foosball tables, TV screens and a screen-projected Super Nintendo video game system that can be played on a large wall from a family room-vibe couch and comfy chairs.

Castillo described the process of making the butter coffee, which ends up looking like a frothy latte with an energy boost but without the sugar and the subsequent crash.

For a 12-ounce cup, he mixes the coffee, the grain-fed goat or cow butter with the purported shot-to-the-brain MCT oil (MCTs — medium-chain triglycerides, a form of saturated fatty acid) in an emulsifier for about 20 seconds to make sure the drink is blended well enough that all the oil doesn’t rise to the top.

“The butter helps fill you up, the MCT oil gives you energy, so your body uses these very clean healthy fats for fuel,” Castillo said. He said other coffee bars might offer one version of the butter brew, “but we have a full menu of different buttered coffee options.”

The Bulletproof brews, which first showed up in Los Angeles in 2015, according to a New York Times article, are the brain child of Silicon Valley and Albuquerque entrepreneur David Asprey, who is said to have felt a kick when he put yak butter in a cup of coffee. The drinks, which have developed somewhat of a celebrity following, are not without their doubters, however, who say their promoters’ claims are highly exaggerated, and could present nutrition issues.

What: Caveman Coffee Cave

Where: 411 W. Water St.

When: Open 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday; 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday; and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday