A couple of weeks ago, my friend Vijay gave me a report from the Fancy Food Show, and told me “there were two interesting cocktail phenomenons there: tea infused everything and lots of unique cocktail syrups.” After some brief investigation, I ended up with 3 bottles of Owl’s Brew on my doorstep. 

Owl’s Brew is a natural, slightly sweetened, tea cocktail mixer with simple mixing instructions: “2 parts Brew with 1 part booze.” Packed in cool, matte black apothecary bottles, Owl’s Brew will run you $10 for a 8 oz bottle or $17 for a 32 oz, and it’s available at many retail locations nationally and online.

The three flavors of Owl’s Brew are:

• Classic is English Breakfast tea, lemon, lime, and agave. This one has a very familiar tea flavor with a lemony tang that you’re already familiar with. There are many liquors you can mix with this one, but we like gin or whiskey the best.
• Coco-Lada is black tea with chai spices, coconut, and pineapple juice. As with the Classic, there are lots of ways to mix this one, but spiced rum seemed to be a perfect fit. Our Coco-Lada bottle was drained the day we opened it.
• Pink & Black is the fruitier tea of the bunch, with darjeeling, hibiscus, lemon and strawberry juice. We mixed this one with whiskey and gin, and gin seemed to be the best fit, though I imagine a splash of Pink & Black in your champagne would be incredible as well.

There are lots of good recipes listed at the Owl’s Brew site, but we stuck with their motto recipe of “2 parts Brew and 1 part booze,” and made these two drinks:

Owl’s Pina (pictured top left)

• in a shaker, combine:
• 2 oz Owl’s Brew Coco-Lada
• 1 oz spiced rum
• shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass

Gin and Tea (pictured top right)

• in a shaker, combine:
• 2 oz Owl’s Brew Classic
• 1 oz of a mild gin (I used G’Vine)
• shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass
• garnish with a lemon wedge

The Owl’s Pina is so good that our 8 oz bottle of Coco-Lada was gone before we could blink (8 oz is enough for 3-4 cocktails). Gin and Tea is a great cocktail, too, and a tea lover will really enjoy having a bottle of the Classic on hand. Classic would also taste great mixed 1-to-2 (reverse the usual ratio) with a wheat beer.

While tea in cocktails isn’t a new concept by any means, Owl’s Brew introduces your cocktails to tea in the simplest way possible. Natural ingredients and a great combination of flavors make their black bottles an excellent addition to the hit-or-miss world of premade cocktail mixers.