Tag: beverage of the week

Beverage of the Week: Spritz Society is the summer drink your aunt’s been waiting for

It’s a wine spritzer. In a can. Big divorced mom energy shining here.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. 

I am not a wine guy.

This may be an attribute of family gatherings where boxed Sunset Blush was the fanciest offering and children were given small glasses in an effort to scare us straight from the world of booze. It may be from a summer in college where my alcohol stash was greatly supplemented by warmed-over bottles of leftover chardonnay as a gondola attendant on the Providence River. Either way, old grapes burrow into a very specific niche in my brain that just flashes “YUCK” spelled out in old-timey light bulbs each time I taste it.

So, not my jam.

I had reservations when Spritz Society offered to send out a four-pack of its wine-based sparkling cocktail for review. Then I remembered I drank vinegar last week (three times!) and felt much better about this exercise. I still didn’t feel great about it — I hadn’t had a spritzer, as far as I can tell, in my life. I don’t believe I’ve heard one ordered anywhere in years (though I live in Wisconsin and if there were some kind of brandy-old-fashioned spritzer it would be a cultural phenomenal akin to the Beatles in 1964).

The marketing materials for this just say, “Welcome to Spritz Society.” Not “the” Spritz Society. Not “a” Spritz Society. This is Spritz Society, and if we want you to put on an owl mask and watch a series of high-stakes toddler fights, well, dammit, you’re gonna watch or have your membership revoked.

The mansion where Society holds its scandalous meetings smells strongly like peach, which gives off a nice summer-y feel to begin with. Once you take a sip the wine base is unmistakable. I couldn’t tell you *which* white wine we’re dealing with here, but it quickly overpowers the peach to fulfill the “spritz” part of the bargain. Unlike the hard seltzers that have been a mainstay in this column throughout the spring, the carbonation isn’t really there. There are a few bubbles, but nothing especially sparkling.

The end result is a light fruit wine, and to its credit, it doesn’t taste cheap. Despite my lack of grape accolades, I’ve had my share of bum wines — an amount of MD 20/20 I would never disclose to my health insurer — and this is considerably better than that.

It’s refreshing enough but not really something I’m into. The fruit fades quickly, but it’s not sickly sweet and is dry enough to be a nice complement to the light booziness that follows. It gets better as it goes on, but the light bitterness of the grapes remain, giving this all a very different taste than any of the hard seltzers with which it’s likely competing.

Which is the point, but it’s betting hard on people having strong feelings for a drink that traditionally pairs better with macrame vests and jigsaw puzzles than a tailgate or brunch. This is very much a wine spritzer, just dolled up for a new generation. Throw all the hashtags on it you want — deep down, this is a beverage that tastes like it drives a Subaru Outback and adopted too many dogs.

That said, this whole idea was apparently crowdsourced through Instagram, so there’s probably a much bigger audience than someone’s dad taking a break from New Glarus beers in Wisconsin.

Wine drinkers might feel differently, but it feels like there’s something missing. A little sweetness. A little carbonation. Something along those lines. It’s entirely drinkable, but at 8.4 ounces per can, 6 percent ABV, and $17 for a four-pack there are better options out there. If you like wine — if you like spritzers! — don’t listen to me. The peach is delicately placed and tasty. The whole drink is relatively pleasant.

But if you’re looking for something refreshing on a hot day, you’re probably better off with a light beer or a hard seltzer.

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Beverage of the Week: I drank La Croix and vinegar because I don’t respect myself

It’s called a “healthy Coke,” and it’s proof TikTok must be stopped.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. 

OK. Full disclosure. I started this feature because I wanted to drink a bunch of fine German beers and then talk about fine German beers. While that very much remains in play, my beautiful, pure vision has since been perverted into hard seltzers, cookie liqueurs and a truly unhealthy amount of Coffee-Mate creamers.

But never did I see it getting this far.

Somewhere, somehow, from the dark recesses of TikTok came an ungodly creation. An abomination of ice, seltzer and balsamic vinegar known, for reasons I can only assume are ironic and/or idiotic, as a “healthy Coke.”

This disturbs me. Greatly.

My stance on La Croix is that it tastes like someone whispering the description of a soda they had weeks ago. My vinegar usage is limited to steak fries and descaling my coffee maker (different vinegars, but still). Like you, I, at no point, considered pairing the two, just as I’d never considered drinking either on its own.

But, because I drank Utah’s dirty sodas, added booze to Utah’s dirty sodas and have sipped cookie dough whiskey in the name of science, this duty fell on my shoulders. “Vocation” comes from the Latin “vox,” or voice, meant to imply a calling from God. In my case, that voice is filtered through my coworkers, lovingly reaching out to say, “hey dummy, drink this.”

So I did. With my head tilted toward the heavens, quietly asking, “why?” I did.

Like last month, when I had to purchase two gallons of coffee creamer in a single trip, I felt weird running this through the checkout line. I fondly remembered the words Ryan Dunn’s urgent care doctor gave him after an x-ray showcased a toy car inside his rectum at the end of the first Jackass movie.

“You don’t talk to anybody. To your girlfriend, to your boyfriend, to whomever. You don’t tell nobody. [My editor] already knows. That’s too many people.”

But while I can hid that shame from the cashier, I can’t expense these drinks I don’t want or salad dressing I won’t use unless I write about it. Such is the plight of my offseason.

Beverage of the Week: White Claw’s new lemonade line is not an improvement

Finally, a White Claw that tastes like something (but not something good).

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. 

I have nothing against White Claw. I just don’t think it tastes like anything.

The brand that helped launch the ongoing hard seltzer trend has, for me, stayed too true to its source material to be all that enjoyable. Every flavor offers a faint hit of what it could be, washed away by dry bubbles. It’s a reasonable alternative that tastes fine on ice but has been utterly skippable when it comes to my beer fridge.

I assumed all seltzers were roughly in that range before High Noon’s vodka/soda-based offerings changed my mind. Those tasted like actual cocktails while retaining the fizz and low calorie count of its genre. With summer set to settle upon Wisconsin at some point — 66 and rainy all weekend! — it felt like a good time to give White Claw another shot.

That led me to their new REFRSHR line of flavors which promise “a completely new take on lemonade.” That seems ambitious since there are already a bunch of other hard seltzer lemonades on the market, but the mix pack I was sent also led me to Google whatever the hell “calamansi” is, so there’s at least a partial truth in that statement. The flavors seem tasty enough and at 5.0 percent alcohol and 100 calories, it packs more of a punch than light beer or High Noon without ruining anyone’s diet.

So sure, let’s see what White Claw’s gonna use to secure its standing in the seltzer world.

Beverage of the Week: Welp, they made me try peach lemonade vodka

Honestly it’s way better than I expected.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. 

Flavored liquors have taken off in recent years. The booming popularity of spirits like Fireball and Skrewball (540 percent growth in 2020!) is a reflection of a market that’s typically rewarded tinkerers trying to make middling drinks taste a little less like themselves.

That’s especially true when it comes to vodka, which offers the blankest canvas for experimentation of all the major liquors. There’s a wide gulf between connoisseurs buying top-shelf brands to drink on ice and the multitudes happy with neutral spirits swirled with fruit juice in a garbage can or whatever.

Pinnacle and Burnett’s have made “bad vodka mixed with a bunch of random crap” their business model; a trip down their line extension reads like a Baskin-Robbins menu. While I had a whipped-cream-vodka phase for a minute back there — especially with Mountain Dew, which somehow tasted like Sour Skittles (try it, in moderation) — I’ve mostly steered away from flavored vodkas and toward whatever would mix best with Zing Zang, hot sauce, and a beef stick garnish.

Smirnoff is hoping to bring me back on board with its new 2022 offering: Peach Lemonade Vodka. I wouldn’t have bought this unless it ended up in a bargain bin at my local grocery store, but my general rule remains: If you send me booze (or non-alcoholic beverages!) I will drink it and write about it.

Right away, this bottle flies in with some lofty promises. It’s wrapped in pink and yellow like it was a leftover prop from a Duran Duran video. The description printed therein promises “a refreshing taste like crisp waves hitting the sand” and “tangy flavors as bright as the sunshine.” I don’t know what the hell a crisp wave is, but fine. Shoot your shot, copywriter.

The bottle also includes three recipes, though they’re more suggestions than actual guides. Let’s try them out, along with a classic vodka tonic since that’s effectively a perfect summer drink and, despite the fact it’s currently 55 and raining in Wisconsin, summer is pretty much here.

Coke and coffee creamer is better than you think (but it’s no coffee substitute)

It’s not as gross as it sounds! It might be good!

Welcome to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. 

This series has largely been steeped in alcohol. This has the benefit of keeping me from delirium tremens in the name of work but also excludes the non-drinkers of the world.

Fortunately, thanks to Olivia Rodrigo and Joseph Smith, an alternative blew up this over the past month that allowed me to expense $20 worth of Coffee-Mate flavored creamers. “Dirty sodas” have long been a staple across Utah, a state whose majority Mormon population is prohibited from hot caffeinated beverages like coffee or tea. Beginning in 2012, however, the Church of Latter Day Saints — Smith’s outfit — decreed caffeinated cold beverages were fine, leading to a slow soda boom in the region.

So outlets across the state have jumped into the craft soda game. Or, specifically, a game in which they craft their own sodas by adding syrups and cream to layer flavors into a pre-existing base (Coca-Cola, Sprite, etc). The whole adventure is kinda like decorating a prefabricated, modular home.

Anyway, chains have popped up throughout the Beehive State with rejected tech start-up names like Swig, Sodalicious and Fiiz and are thriving because, you know, no hot coffee.

Ms. Rodrigo posted about the beverage back in December and it recently went viral on TikTok. While it feels new, it’s been trending in some form since 2016. If you’re reading this from Utah or any other location with a heavy Mormon population, you’re probably feeling real hipster-y about the whole subject, having known about it before it was cool. Congrats on that; maybe send a few recipes my way? Because soon you will realize I have only a very basic grasp on proper dirty soda architecture.

Traditional pale ales may be fading, but Bell’s Two-Hearted still tastes like summer

Traditional IPAs may be falling out of style, but Bell’s Two-Hearted still rules.

Welcome to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. 

This probably isn’t a beer that needs a review. Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale is a titan in the world of craft brewery standouts. It’s been around for as long as I’ve been drinking beer — a baseline fancy option everyone likes. It’s even spawned its own extensions light and heavy along the way.

But I’ll be damned if Two-Hearted doesn’t taste like summer to me. And we’re finally set to have more than one 70-degree day in a row up here in Wisconsin, so here we go.

The first sip, this one off a fresh tap, is crisp, pine-y hops. It’s not overwhelmingly gloomy with bitterness, especially for a brew that promises “massive hop additions in both the kettle and the fermenter.” Instead, there’s a sunny feeling stuck in there thanks to the general lightness of the beer.

That leaves an open canvas for a little grapefruit citrus to slide onto the scene. No one’s going to confuse it for a shandy or even a juicy IPA, but there’s a definite fruit aftertaste that works in tandem with that crispy start. By now that’s fairly commonplace, but back in the 1990s when this beer first came about it probably blew people’s minds.

This is a beer that is much easier to drink than you expect, especially at 7 percent ABV. It stays inviting as it warms, balancing the earthiness of a healthy dose of hops with the airiness of that citrus. Everything about it is pleasant; if you’re a beer person it’s complex enough that you can parse out distinct flavors. If you’re just looking for a quick drink you can enjoy the fact it tastes great and drinks smoother than any IPA from the 90s should.

Three-ish decades later, it’s still a flagship beer since it’s so damn good. What’s going to happen now that trends are finally turning away from traditional IPAs?

Two-Hearted’s future is probably fine. The brewery was sold to a subsidiary of Japan’s Kirin last winter after its founder decided to retire, but as long as no one’s tinkering with the recipe, Bell’s will continue to thrive. The brewery itself is diverse enough to survive a changing landscape. Two-Hearted will be the taste of summer for dorks like me no matter what.

But what about the rest of a brewing landscape that leaned heavily on “[expletive] your tastebuds” hoppiness over the past decade-plus? Pale ales’ share of the beer marketplace continues to grow, but much of that can be tied to the expansion of styles that goes beyond the basic brew that defined the early stages of the brewery boom. Demand for hazy IPAs in particular is a major driver; their share of the beer market grew by 761 percent through the start of the pandemic, per Drizly.

Hazies aren’t the only reason for the pale ale’s recent rise. Session IPAs have helped make the heavy brews more approachable. Imperial IPAs moved in the opposite direction and had their sales grow nearly 500 percent between 2020 and 2021.

Together they make up the second-best selling booze style of the budding decade, behind only the incredible rise of hard seltzers. Half the top-selling IPAs came from those aforementioned subcategories. Just having a hoppy beer isn’t enough anymore. Being really good in one dimension isn’t going to provide a flagship brand. And while we don’t have actual numbers for 2022 yet, anecdotal evidence suggests the drinking public may be cooling on the traditional pale ales that were omnipresent in America’s craft brewing boom.

Which makes sense, because we’ve had two-plus decades to perfect the micro- (and macro-) brew version of the American pale ale. Two-Hearted proves there isn’t much room left for improvement. No one’s clamoring for Dr. Thunder when Dr. Pepper already exists.

And that’s what a great pale ale like Two-Hearted (or Space Dust, or Axe Man, or Sculpin) has become; the brand name competitors are left to chase. Instead, breweries have turned to IPA styles they can make their own while unlocking a new dimension of customer. There might not be another Two-Hearted, but there doesn’t need to be. There could be a hazy or imperial or session copycat instead that takes the ball and runs with it to create a unique juggernaut.

That’s great news for beer nerds and neophytes alike. Pale ales are great. Expanding their universe so there’s something for everyone is even better.

High Noon’s hard seltzer, Pool Pack, is better than it has any right to be

Yeah man, I’m surprised too.

Welcome to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Previously, we’ve folded these in to our betting guides, whether that’s been for the NFL slate or a bizarrely successful run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey. 

I am not a hard seltzer guy, but I appreciate their place in the boozing landscape.

The obvious appeal is having something light and slightly familiar, with the added feature of cutting out gluten for any Celiac drinkers out there. Previous malt beverages, like Smirnoff Ice, were always sticky and syrupy. Seltzers were always a little crisper and more mature.

I understand that “maturity” is a relative term for a category that taught the world: “There’s no laws when you’re drinking Claws.” Considering Smirnoff Ice’s lasting contribution to society was a game where drinking one was presented as an ignominious challenge, it’s a step up.

Early seltzers were spiritually part of the La Croix bloodline, even though the famous bubbly-maker had nothing to do with actual booze. The opening salvos from White Claw and Bon & Viv were mostly true to that standard: a highway of bubbles, with whatever fruit flavor was supposed to be involved stuck in the trunk and politely asking to be let out. Fortunately, because La Croix is awful, we’ve moved away from that and toward a world where these seltzers actually taste like things.

That brings me to High Noon’s Pool Pack, which cruelly arrived on my doorstep on a snowy Wisconsin day (this applies to most of April and select days in May). I am a relative seltzer neophyte, but if you offer to send me booze I will happily drink it and then write about it.

Along the way, I was promised the “best-tasting hard seltzer” on the market. That’s some high praise that I lack the tools to quantify, but yeah, High Noon was pretty dang good.

Allow me to break it down.