Ask my friends and they'll tell you that I've always thoroughly enjoy mixing simple highball cocktails with kombucha. With its tangy, slightly fizzy attributes, the fermented, probiotic-loaded tea drink is almost my preferred mix for a gin and tonic over a traditional tonic soda. Now, things have gotten even easier for me.
Recently, the Calgary-based Wild Tea Kombucha released their first hard kombucha flavours: ginger lime and blueberry hibiscus are both infinitely refreshing. Wild Tea's VP of marketing, Beth Allison, says that they took a year to fine tune these two boozy brews before finally bringing them to market.
The two flavours boast a full six per cent alcohol level and, if you ask me, are best sipped over ice. The ginger lime flavour is, perhaps, best compared to a Moscow Mule, while the blueberry hibiscus is more robust and slightly floral. Between the two, I prefer the latter.
The kombucha producer first launched in Calgary back in 2015 and has since grown at a steady rate. The company is also a past participant of Arlene Dickinson's highly touted District Ventures Accelerator program, which helps small businesses (primarily in the food and drink industry) find their footing and acquire tools to help them succeed as they grow.
The hard kombucha is currently only available at the Inglewood location of Oak & Vine, J. Webb Wine Merchant in Glenmore Landing and Collective: A Craft Beer Shop. Knowing how popular their current offerings of craft (non-alcoholic) kombucha and sodas are, expect the product to be picked up by more local liquor stores in the coming weeks.
Best to stick to Wild Tea Kombucha's Instagram feed to find out where that just might be.
