Learn all about Real Kombucha & WIN a gift pack and tickets to the festival in our prize draw
Sometimes it’s hard to know what to drink if you’re not drinking, but luckily a number of brilliant brands are coming together at this years’ festival to help answer that question at our Non-alcoholic cocktail event.
So often cocktails and alcohol are interlinked, but so many of the flavour combinations we know and love come from the botanical ingredients rather than the alcohol itself. Join Guardian drinks writer Fiona Beckett, Callum Hutson of Real Kombucha and Claire Warner of Æcorn Aperitifs as they guide you through the best booze-free cocktails around and teach you the skills you need to be able to recreate them at home in the Drinks’ Theatre on Sunday 22nd September.
You’ll learn how to use aromatics and botanicals to create complex flavour combinations, and discover how soft drinks such as kombucha can be utilised alongside innovative developments in the world of non-alcoholic spirits to create cocktails that will be so drinkable that you won’t even notice they’re alcohol free.
Ahead of this, we wanted to resurface this blog post from last year so you can find out all about Kombucha, and give you a chance to try some for yourself with our latest prize draw. We have 5 x gift packs from Real Kombucha to give away, and so you can sample some in the Welsh countryside as well as at home we’re also offering 5 x pairs of adult weekend wristbands.
Read on to find out all about kombucha and to be in with your chance to win in our exclusive prize draw
Kombucha is everywhere at the moment – on TV, in magazines, and quite possibly in your fridge. The media tends to linger on the weird, so you get endless articles about scobys and how they can be converted into wearable leather, but – to our minds – that’s just a distraction. The real story is how kombucha, when brewed well, can really change the way people drink.
We don’t say that lightly, either. We spent time with the Real Kombucha team at Abergavenny Food Festival last year, and we heard the evidence first-hand. The word “witchcraft” often came up as customer after disbelieving customer tried the drink for the first time, expressing a mix of confusion and delight as they tried to get their heads around what they’re drinking. And once they’re hooked, they tend to become Real believers. These drinks are now available in close to 60 Michelin-starred restaurants across the UK.
The Real Kombucha flavour is such that people often assume they’re supping alcohol, and are dumbfounded to find that they’re actually consuming a non-alcoholic drink that weighs lightly in calories and sugar. As they drink more, a fascinating idea frequently suggests itself. “I’m so glad I found this,” they say. “This means I can cut down on the amount of wine I drink.”
That’s exactly how the founder, David Begg, reacted the first time that he tried the drink. “I first tried kombucha when a great friend of mine passed me a glass of his home brew across the table over dinner,” he recalls. “It was absolutely love at first sip. I couldn’t believe that his full flavoured brew was non-alcoholic. So, he gave me some kombucha culture to try brewing my own, and my obsession commenced. I had (almost) given up alcohol a couple of years previously, and since being off the alcohol, there was a really big hole in my foodie life. Water just doesn’t cut it with a great meal, but a well-brewed kombucha can really add something.”
David and his team experimented with around 150 teas before deciding on the three that make up their current range. Importantly, each suits a specific drinking occasion, and each can be compared to specific kinds of alcohol that have traditionally been offered in certain situations.
“We think of Royal Flush as our full-bodied white wine or champagne,” explains David. “As it is fruity and bubbly it is a great replacement for champagne or prosecco as a celebration drink or as an aperitif. We brew it from First Flush Darjeeling, known in India as the Queen of Teas. The first two tips of the tea plant, picked as they emerge in the first bloom of spring, are dried carefully to tease out a character closer to a delicate white tea.”
“Our Dry Dragon works as a really dry Sauvignon Blanc – tart with notes of grapefruit and lemon. We brew it out of Dragonwell pan-fried green tea from Zhejiang Province in China. The fresh leaves are wiped around a piping hot wok to stop the natural oxidation process early. Unlike Japanese green teas, steamed to give a distinct grassy flavour, Dragonwell reveals more complex nutty and straw-like flavours. We talk about it as our ‘all-day’ drink. You can have a bottle of this with your breakfast, or you can sup it in the way you might have a glass of wine in the evening.”
“Last, but by no means least, Smoke House is our most complex brew. As I said earlier, black teas tend to ferment to give notes of apple and caramel, but we have selected a Yunnan tea that has a delicate smokiness that comes through in the final ferment. The tea is grown in the high mountains of southern China by smaller, permaculture plantations. The growers climb the ancient, fully-grown trees to pick the finest leaves. Those smokey, apple and caramel flavours give you the sense that you’re drinking a delicious scrumpy cider. It’s a great end-of-a-long-day drink.”
As more and more people look for an alternative to alcohol (statistics show that around 30% of Londoners between 18 and 24 say they’re teetotal), there has been a marked increase in the number of non-alcoholic options available. Most are traditional boozy drinks with the alcohol removed. In the case of kombucha, however, there’s a whole a new avenue to explore. The Real
Kombucha team think of their brews in the same way that wine makers view wine: if you truly understand the ingredients and the process – where they come from, how different teas ferment, which flavours can be drawn from which leaves – and you give them the respect they deserve, then there’s no reason why kombucha shouldn’t be seen as an exquisite, high-end drink in its own right.
As the Real Kombucha tagline suggests, it’s a drink “brewed for open-minds”. Perhaps it’s time you took a step off the beaten track and explored this emerging world.
For your chance to be one of 5 winners, each of whom will receive a Real Kombucha gift pack AND a pair of adult weekend wristbands to our 2019 festival, enter our prize draw.
