Cocktail report: Charbay charms

God bless liquor sponsors, which have become nature's way of ensuring that we'll never know what we're drinking at industry parties. Cocktail Report is The Knife's occasional attempt to do the decoding work.

The bottle Charbay green tea vodka

The place Tanzore, hosting a cocktail party for the Hell's Kitchen finale

The verdict Don't judge a booze by its bottle.

Is there nothing green tea can't do? It prevents cancer! lowers cholesterol! smells nice! This makes green tea very trendy, which makes Charbay green tea vodka an object of suspicion, if not derision; ordering green tea vodka for your health is a step away from being the Yoga Guy.

As it turns out, that's not why you order it; you order Charbay's green tea vodka because it tastes good with lime, mint and simple syrup. The site claims to have spent an absurd amount of time tracking down and extracting the tea leaves, which may explain why it lacks the weird Sno-Cone tang of say, Absolut Raspberri. However, Absolut comprises about 40% of the vodka consumed in the world; Charbay is a microdistillery owned by the Karakasevic family in Napa Valley, where they also make whiskey, port and grappa, and not that much of it.

Comments

[Sunita Surajan]

Green Tea while amazing in its various contortions should never become a brulee (it is still too painful to talk or write about that in detail). However, I can't wait to sample this one - lime, mint, syrup... sounds like a refreshing ending to a crazy work week.