It's occurred to me that regular readers might be a little frustrated with the ratings I give to the foods and drinks I often cover on this blog, in that my average opinion is, well, average. Many (most?) of the things I try are neither spectacular nor horrific--they're just okay. Which might get tedious to learn about, I guess. Not that this will probably stop, though, since I try to be honest about my ratings. Anyway, I bring this up because today's topic is an exception to this, "it's alright, kind of mediocre" typical assessment. I tried three cans from the Owl's Brew Boozy Tea series--their white tea/raspberry/watermelon flavor, the Matcha/pineapple/chamomile one, and the Darjeeling tea/hibiscus flower kind.
First off, on the cans it says their drinks are canned for Double Brew LLC, out of New York, New York. I couldn't find out much of anything about Double Brew. So I'm not sure if Owl's Brew is the brand for the overall Double Brew company, or if it's a producer or distributer, or what. Therefore, I'll just go with discussing it as Owl's Brew, since that's where the information is. Owl's Brew was started in 2013 by Jennie Ripps and Maria Littlefield. The company still seems pretty small, claiming it employs only 12 people. However, their products are available all across the East Coast of the U.S., along with Arizona and California, so they're not a tiny niche outfit, either. Aside from the kinds I got, they also make a jasmine/blueberry/lemon variant, and an English breakfast/lemon & lime flavor. Additionally, Owl's Brew make drink mixes, such as a couple of margaritas, a pina colada, etc. As with many of the companies I report on, Owl's Brew is super focused on avoiding artificial ingredients of any kind. Their website included a criticism of the FDA, since they allege that this organization allows ingredients to be billed as "natural flavors" even when they're made from chemicals. Not shockingly, Ripps and Littlefield are concerned with the relative lack of opportunities for women in the world of business. Given what I've already mentioned, it's also not surprising that Owl's Brew products are gluten-free, vegan-appropriate, and made using organic teas. Although the tea leaves used are kosher, the resulting drinks aren't kosher overall, if you follow these rules. Evidently their drinks have amassed a decent following, as they've won various culinary awards, such as SIPs, Sofis, and BevNets. Moving on, the founders admit to being "kind of obsessed with hibiscus" (see my post on June 9, 2017 for more information about this flower). Finally my discussion about the personal anatomy of beavers is in the final paragraph, if you're either intrigued, or put off and repulsed.
1) Owl's Brew Boozy Tea, Darjeeling tea/hibiscus flower flavor: Like the others, this came in a 12 ounce/355 mL can. Color was pinkish-red, and I couldn't detect any odor. No apparent carbonation. It was awful--cloyingly sweet. Just terrible. A bad aftertaste, too, to go along with the bad fore and during tastes. Didn't taste like the hibiscus flowers I ate previously. Drain pour, dumped most of it, as I couldn't go on punishing my taste buds.
2) Owl's Brew Boozy Tea, white tea/raspberry/watermelon flavor: Same size can, and lack of smell. Little to no (?) carbonation. Light yellow hue. Again, awful. The tea part tasted bad. Overly fruity, in a negative way. Usually I like raspberry flavors, but not like this. Another drain pour.
3) Owl's Brew Boozy Tea, Matcha/pineapple/chamomile flavor: Same relative lack of odor, and only slight carbonation. Very pale yellow color. Maybe slightly better than the others, but still pretty disgusting. Once again, I typically like pineapple, and things flavored with it, but not this. Yet another drain pour.
I stand by my opinions about these Boozy Teas, since they were my honest reactions. But I do feel a little bad about saying this, since the owners seem to mean well, and I certainly support women having a fairer shot in business, along with supporting civil rights for traditionally oppressed minorities across the board. And it's true that I'm not a big tea fan in general, so I'm clearly not the target audience. On the other hand, the iced teas I do enjoy are usually fruit flavored, so there's that. I should also mention that all of these teas had a 4.8% alcohol content, or about the same as a typical beer.
On the official Owl's Nest website, it mentioned that some so-called natural flavors "can come from the butts of beavers." This caught my attention, so I checked into it a little. And this is mostly accurate, but there are some issues. A substance called castoreum has been used in drinks, candies, cakes, ice creams, etc., and it does come from a personal region of a beaver. But, at the same time, there are several common misconceptions about castoreum. First off, beavers don't have the same type of plumbing as most mammals, in that they don't have a separate external anus, urethra, and sexual organs. Instead, their setup is like that of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and a few other mammals, such as the echidna, platypus, tenrecs, and some moles--they have one hole that serves for all of these things, called a cloaca. So, in essence, they pee and poop out of the same place, and when they get busy the males' genitals emerge out of this same hole, and enter the female's same aperture. Also, the castoreum does not come from the anal glands, but from a sac that's next to them. Furthermore, castoreum is sometimes characterized as being used to mimic vanilla and raspberry in cheap, crappy foods. The opposite is true--castoreum use has dwindled sharply since the 1980's, and now it's rarely used in consumables. Part of the reason is because it's so expensive to buy and use, since harvesting it is way more labor intensive than buying inexpensive artificial flavors. Another writer adamantly stated that castoreum does not produce the flavor of vanilla or raspberry in and of itself, but it instead enhances these flavors derived from other sources. If you want more information on this, I recommend Nadia Berenstein's article in "Vice," and Eric Troy's piece in "Culinary Lore," both of which were online. The former article had a great line at the end--"Maybe we should all be eating more beaver butts." In closing, I clearly don't have the same disdain for artificial flavors, etc., that the Owl's Brew ladies do. For one thing, defining "natural" is kind of difficult, since even the harshest, most complicated to produce chemicals are derived from natural sources at heart, since that's all there is on Earth. I don't care if something in my consumables is natural or artificial--I only care about its safety, taste, shelf life, and so on. Lastly, it kind of cracked me up that Owl's Brew is against all non-natural flavors, but is also against the "beaver butt" castoreum. Isn't something taken directly from an animal the most natural thing of all? (I'm having some fun here, obviously, but hopefully you get my point.) There's a bourbon, Eau De Musc, from Tamworth Distilling, that intentionally uses castoreum as an additive. I'd love to try some, even though I'm not really a bourbon guy.
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