By Nick Barth Gear writer Published Nov 13, 2016 at 8:00 AM

Watch OnMilwaukee's Nick Barth discuss this segment on WISN Channel 12.  Click here.

Let's face it, most of us are fueled by coffee. There are many kinds of ways to make and drink it and new coffee trends appear all the time. I got a chance to try out two products that make two of those trends easier to prepare.

Dripo 2-in-1 travel iced-drip coffee maker

Cold brew coffee is very popular right now and with good reason. Using cold water to extract instead of hot produces a smoother, less acidic drink. Done right, a cold brew coffee is softer, less bitter and more well-rounded than a typical hot brew. The main drawback is that it's much more of a process. Most methods of cold brewing take 24 hours! That's tedious for coffee shops to pull off and usually a deal-breaker for home use. The Dripo cuts down on both the effort and time it takes to make a good cold brew at home.

Assemble the Dripo, add coffee, an optional filter (on top of the coffee, to better distribute the water) and fill the reservoir with ice water. The water slowly drips through the grounds and to the tumbler below. Once the process is done (about two hours), remove the reservoir and your coffee is ready to go!

Two hours sounds like a long time, but it's much better than preparing it a day in advance. I set it up when I get up in the morning and my coffee is ready for ice and cream by the time I get to work. If you're into cold brewed or iced coffee, this is a definite improvement over existing methods.

Omega Power Creamer

Butter coffee – yes, butter – isn't as crazy as it sounds. Adding grass-fed butter and coconut oil to your coffee can provide your body with "good fats" and help kick-start ketosis if you're on a paleo or keto diet.

Purported health benefits aside, one of the best things about butter coffee for me is increased focus, a less-jittery caffeine high, and no midday crash. I find my day is more productive and less up-and-down when I start out with a cup (or, I'll admit, two) of butter coffee.

Butter coffee means adding both butter and coconut oil to your coffee and blending them to make a nice, fluffy latte. Like standard cold brewing, it can be a pain. Get out the butter and coconut oil, add them to the coffee (always messier than I think it will be), blend, drink.

Omega Power Creamer is made from grass-fed clarified butter, organic fair-trade virgin coconut oil, and MCT oil (similar to coconut oil). The clarified butter makes it shelf stable and is lactose- and casein-free for those with intolerance/sensitivities.

It's more like adding cream to your coffee than the butter and coconut oil separately, and you don't have to measure - just eyeball it. The latte is rich and delicious with all the aforementioned butter coffee benefits.

In the OnMilwaukee office, even people who were skeptical of butter coffee (and, ahem, didn't want to clean up after themselves using butter and coconut oil separately) gave it a shot. A bottle makes 20 cups and thankfully I got a few of those before it was used up. Butter coffee is becoming our thing here, and I'm sure I'll be seeing more Power Creamer around in the future.

OnMilwaukee.com's senior developer Nick Barth has been a part of the team since 2008. After an 18-month stint in Portland, he returned to his hometown with a new love of food trucks, bike life, and simple and effective gadgetry. The self-proclaimed gear geek and denim addict now presents OnMilwaukee's #wewant series weekend mornings on WISN-12.