Yup, it's another sequel. Back on December 19, 2020, I wrote about the 99 Brand "PB&J" package--a collection of peanut butter, grape, and strawberry flavored liquors, made to emulate the American kid favorite peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Oddly, it was one of my most viewed posts, by far. (I realize some of these "viewers" were non-human bots, but still.) So I'm going to see if lightning will strike twice. The two new kinds I tried this time were the black cherry and the whipped (cream) ones.
In the earlier post on this brand I wrote about the company's history, to the best of my ability. Which was extremely limited, as there's basically none available about the Polynesian Product Company. The official website for 99 brands is just a product list, recipes, where to buy their wares, and a "contact us" option. Therefore, I mainly focused on what I could find, about the history of the company (Sazerac) that eventually acquired Polynesian. At the time that was about how Sazerac essentially started as a coffee house in New Orleans in 1850. Well, now I can provide a bit more, as the Sazerac website added some more background (or else I was lax a couple of years ago, but since forgot). So now I'll get into some of this pre-1850 history. To that end, the Sazerac family lived in the Cognac region of Western France. In the 1630's it established a vineyard and distillery there. One of the later Sazeracs, Louis, was also into working with metal, as he both built a bell for the factory and made some cannons used by the rebelling colonists in the American Revolution. (Thanks Louis!) At around the same time the Sazeracs began exporting their cognac, which in the U.S. was sometimes confusingly referred to as "brandy." The family then moved to what's now America, in the former French colony city of New Orleans. Then in the 1830's two other guys, Antoine Peychaud and Taylor Sewell, both got involved in the liquor/coffee house industries as well, and ended up joining and/or controlling the former Sazerac business. Then in 1850......you can go back to my December 19, 2020 post to review that, if you're interested. Otherwise, as I kind of mentioned previously, there are many different kinds of 99 liquors, some of them with quite unusual flavors. Just about every major fruit type is a flavored liquor, as well as some other, atypical ones, such as butterscotch, cinnamon, chocolate, peppermint, root beer, Long Island Iced Tea, espresso (with the oddly obscene "xxpresso" spelling), "red" (whatever that means), and even a "mystery" flavor. (I'll tell you what that means below, marked with an asterisk (*), so don't scroll down to the end if you don't what the surprise spoiled.) There are over 30 different flavors in all. Additionally, 99 also makes a line of hard seltzers. Keeping with their theme of producing extremely high alcohol content versions of their boozes, instead of the usual 5% or so, their hard seltzers are 9.9%. And here's the only real 99 brand history I could find online. Don't know how accurate it is, but supposedly the brand started in 1997, with their banana flavor.
99 Brand liquors, black cherry liqueur: This had a clear color, and a black cherry-ish odor. Was the usual, titular 99 proof (49.5% alcohol content). And it was....shockingly good. The previous 99 liquors I had were overly boozy-tasting and astringent. This however, was not--it had a nice black cherry flavor, and hid its high alcohol content well. A solid, respectable example of this liquor type, and I would recommend it to folks who are into black cherry-flavored edibles and drinkables.
99 Brand liquors, whipped (cream) flavor: Like its black cherry counterpart, this was clear, and had a discernable smell, appropriate to its named flavor. Once again, this one was surprisingly palatable. It tasted like whipped cream, in liquor form. Probably not as good as the black cherry kind, but it was above average, decent. Maybe it would be even better as part of a cream-themed cocktail. It also hid its 49.5% alcohol content well, and wasn't caustic and nasty like the PB & J ones.
So these two drinks have shaken my previous opinion of the 99 Brand. Going in, I did this kind of on a lark (and because coming up with different blog topics is sometimes challenging). I figured I'd hate both of these. But that's the fun of trying new things--sometimes you're surprised by the results. I'll definitely try more of these 99 liquors, and see what happens. Maybe the peanut butter, grape, and strawberry boozes were the outliers, the weakest ones of the bunch, and the rest of the 99 catalog is generally good. The fact that many of these come in single shot-sized bottles helps, since it only costs like a dollar or two to experiment. Finally, unlike the previous PB & J bottles, these two weren't as difficult to open. So all in all this second 99 Brand experience was worlds better, in every way.
Switching topics, I'm please to announce that an article of mine, about anniversaries, is in the current June issue of InD'tale magazine, which is their 10th anniversary. Plus, I'm going to be a guest columnist for this same publication until the end of the year, meaning still more articles through December. So thanks to owner/editor TJ Mackay and the rest of the InD'tale staff and contributors, and head on over! The address is: www.indtale.com And the price is free--just click on the shown magazine to read.
* It's caramel corn, allegedly. Which, admittedly, is a rather strange, and unique(?) flavor for an alcoholic beverage.
No comments:
Post a Comment