Almost exactly a year ago, on January 9th, 2021, I did a post about a Colombian alcoholic drink, aguardiente. Today I'm doing another Colombian drink, although this time it's not booze. More specifically, it's the Avena original oatmeal smoothie, from the Alpina Productos Alimenticios company.
Alpina dates back to 1945. Two Swiss men, Max Bazinger and Walter Goggel, founded the company. They were especially taken with the Sopo valley region in Colombia, which reminded them of places in their home country. They were apparently the first Colombian company to market traditional European cheeses such as emmental, gruyere (see my post on June 30th, 2018) and parmesan. Since then, the business has thrived--it's now the 3rd largest dairy company in Colombia, with reported annual sales of $700,000,000 (converted into U.S. dollars). Alpina markets milks, cheeses, yogurts, desserts, baby foods, juices, and vegetable drinks. Also kumis, which interests me because it's traditionally made from fermented horse and donkey milk. Alpina is also quite concerned with various environmental issues--they're striving to become plastic-free and carbon neutral as of this year, and their milk is derived from certified sustainable livestock, in zero deforestation zones. Additionally, my drink was kosher, if you're observant of such a diet.
Alpina Avena original oatmeal smoothie: Had an off white color, and slight oat-y odor. The taste was alright. I was hoping it would be sweeter. The texture was a little thin, too, especially since it was billed as a smoothie. So just solid overall. Also, it's not oat milk, as I originally thought (see my post on June 16, 2018 for more on that drink). It's actually milk with oat flour in it. As usual, I'll certainly try any other Alpina products if I get the chance. Although, that seems kind of unlikely.
The past few years I've expanded shorter posts on foreign products by talking about that particular nation's famous people, or general fun facts about it. But I can't really do that here, since I did so in the aguardiente post last year. Fortunately, the official Alpina website included some fun facts about cheese, so I'll discuss these a bit. First of all, the U.S. is reportedly the biggest cheese producer in the world, followed by Germany. (I would have thought France or Italy would be the gold or silver medalists here, but no.) Moving on, Sweden actually makes a cheese from moose milk. Not shockingly, it's rather expensive. I would bet milking a very large, dangerous wild animal is a bit tricky, after all. Finally, staying on price, the world's most expensive type of cheese is Pule, which is Serbian, and made from 60% donkey milk, and 40% goat milk. The reason it's so expensive is that the milk can only be produced by a certain breed of donkey, and only 100 individuals currently exist. I heard top prices of up to $600 U.S dollars per kilo, or allegedly over a 1000 Euros for a similar amount.
Anyway, tune in next early January for a post about, let's say, a Colombian soft drink or something. And since I forgot to say it in my last post, which actually was on January 1st, I hope everyone has a fun, safe, and productive 2022.
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