ALL HARD SELTZERS ARE EQUAL [BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS].
George Orwell* famously wrote that ‘all animals are equal’ in his legendary 1945 satire on communism, Animal Farm. In the tale, the creators of this maxim go on to amend the statement to concede that in actual fact ‘some animals are more equal than others’ …and this, treasured readers, is the long winded and slightly precocious intro into our blog question for today.
Q - WHY ARE SOME HARD SELTZER BRANDS BETTER THAN OTHERS?
As the Hard Seltzer wave continues to roll through the UK, more and more people are encountering them in their assorted forms from brands big and small and you [the insatiably curious people of Britain] are wanting to know what separates this multitude of Hard Seltzers that are popping up in your local bars / shops and internet browsers. Which are good, which are bad and how could you possibly know without trying them first?
Hard Seltzers, as I'm sure you know, are in short, 'alcoholic sparkling water' so when you break this down, the areas to compete for excellence are three fold;
- The alcoholic base
- The flavourings used
- The quality of the water and how fizzy
Whilst we're confident we can top the charts on all 3, we think that point 1 is particularly key as the fundamental building block to any decent Hard Seltzer. So let us quickly tell you about the hard bit - namely the alcohol at the heart of the fizz.
The alcohol in most hard seltzer brands tends to come from 3 common sources.
- A neutral grain spirit (predominantly vodka or gin) and often these are cheap products from mass factory distillers.
- A malted alcohol base [sounds delicious???!!]
- A sugar beet alcohol base, which is again a cheap way to get mass produced alcohol and, for reference, it is normally the kind of alcohol you find making up the other 49% of any cheap tequilas [mixto tequilas only need to use 51% agave spirit, hence why nowadays ALL the premium tequila brands are 100% blue weber agave].
When developing Lilo we tried all of the above and found them all lacking in their own ways, which led us to the unprecedented step of commissioning a bespoke botanical spirit from an award winning Scottish distiller - each designed to compliment our 2 individual flavours. We use lemon verbena and orange peel for our White Grape & Elderflower spirit and ginger and grains of paradise for our Cranberry and Rosehip flavour.
The results we think are clear, as no-one else has a bespoke botanical spirit to match their individual flavours and this attention to detail is why we believe that our Hard Seltzers are in the words of George Orwell ‘created more equal than others’
Lilo can be purchased on our website at www.lilodrinks.com or at Harrods or at select bars and supermarkets throughout the UK.
*George Orwell wasn’t a well known Hard Seltzer fan, although if he was alive today we’re sure he’d be a fan of Lilo as he always championed independents who took the fight to the corporate giants.