JFG Nation, the next Summer Fancy Food Show food group I want to focus on is booze. Well, drinks generally, but mainly booze. As I flipped through my pictures chronologically, though, I noticed one thing – I definitely slow played my booze consumption. I.e., apparently I didn’t leap right into the Ouzo shots right away at 10:00am on Sunday morning.

The weekend started out calmly…in fact, the first booze-related thing I saw were these Jack Daniel’s candies and cake mixes:

Whiskey Chocolates, Caramel, and Cakes, oh my! But no samples except for individually wrapped caramels. LAME, JACK DANIELS. Tip for future vendors at the Summer Fancy Food Show – don’t make us GUESS what your product tastes like. Because otherwise I’m going to assume you’re too embarrassed to have me try it because of how mediocre it is.

On to the mixers! This was the first soda/mixer I tried at the Summer Fancy Food Show 2016 – Licorice Ledger’s Tonic. The licorice flavor in this tonic was STRONG…like I was drinking sparkling water flavored with Good ‘n Plenty. Mixed with ouzo or sambuca and you’d have an anise-flavored heaven. Or, if you hate licorice, this was a death drink. Make your choice.

Bruce Cost Ginger Ale is already in a lot of stores near me, but this year they were featuring their Blood Orange Meyer Lemon Ginger Ale. This was awesome – an explosion of ginger, super tart blood orange and sweet citrus-y lemon. It was like a beautiful hipster cocktail in a bottle even before you added any alcohol. Delicious.

I tend to have Ginger Beer radar at the Summer Fancy Food Show, because I enjoy it, and this craft Ginger Beer from Pickett’s was one of the best. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the HOT spicy and the MEDIUM spicy because they were both pretty overpowering in ginger punch. High quality ginger burn on my throat – the Moscow Mule mugs that were displayed had no mules inside. Missed opportunity.

Sipp was one of my favorite soda mixers last year, and with their updated flavor lineup this year to include ginger blossom and summer pear, I remembered why – these drinks were SUPER crisp and not very sweet at ALL. Not as mellow as a flavored sparkling water, these Sipp drinks had a wonderful amount of flavor – just not cloyingly sweet like a normal soda. Super clean flavors; these reminded me of less-sweet Izze drinks. I could’ve downed the tiny cups of these all day long.

As we rounded third base of the first day of the Summer Fancy Food Show 2016; coffee drinks started to pop up. This Crio was an interesting concept – instead of brewing coffee using coffee beans, why not grind and brew using cocoa beans?

It SOUNDED really interesting to me, but the result wasn’t my favorite. Or rather, I didn’t like it. What I drank was a hot cup of what tasted like weak tea. There was some cocoa bean flavor, and I wasn’t expecting this to be like hot cocoa or anything, but it was a far cry from coffee. Crio pushes the fact that it has amazing antioxidants and gives you natural energy (it is 99% caffeine free). I’ll pass for now.

I personally love cold brew coffee; Blue Bottle and Stumptown are my jams. This Chameleon Cold Brew was very interesting…it was ready-to-drink in a bottle, which was new to me. Usually I still pour cold brew over ice and added cream, etc. but they encouraged me to drink it straight. While the espresso and vanilla versions were just ok, I will admit – that Mexican Coffee one had a decent amount of spice that made me smile.

Fully caffeinated, I was ready, FINALLY,. to start boozing. After all, it was….2:00 in the afternoon? Oh well, there goes my liver.

Tomorrow: Part 2!

Sincerely,

The JFG