Spiked Seltzers For Summer

Seltzer was always seen as the supporting player in cocktails and spritzers.It gave a fizzy kick to mix drinks and wine. Now there's a new kind of seltzer that's a star. It's the hard kind , guaranteed less calories but more of a buzz.

Joshua M. Bernstein  who has written several books about beer and plans tasting tours for  beer connoisseurs wrote about this relatively new offshoot. Hard seltzer is seltzer  with fermented sugar and barley malt to give it the shot of alcohol. It can be tough for manufacturers looking to retain the water's blank canvas. During the fermentation process yeast create aroma and character - perfect for beer  - not so great for fizzy water. One brewery, Platform Beer Company spent six month refining recipes and techniques before settling on the barley malt and  cane sugar that is run through a special filtration process. The company also uses a brewing enzyme to reduce gluten content.It worked. The founder,Paul Benner was surprised at the clarity and how much the final product looks like water. By December , the company debuted its'  sparkling Black Cherry that contained only one hundred calories and  four grams of carbohydrates. Unfortunately the FDA forbids alcohol companies to make health claims about their products. However breweries prominently display the calories and amount of carbs on the cans,

The big question is will hard seltzer make a splash in the drinks world? Most people do like it. It's a polarizing guilty pleasure and some find it more refreshing than craft beers and hard ciders. Still, there will always be skeptics. The creator of HRD WTR, Eddie Leon, has said it's a fun ride like a moped, but you don't want to be caught riding one. Yet hard seltzer could catch on with more people. There's the diet factor although most drinks, including some cocktails like mimosas and gin and tonics are very low in calories. . Another reason is that seltzer can blend with any fruit juice or even macerated fruit such as strawberries. Add a few blueberries or a lime slice to a hard seltzer and it's a fun buzzy sip ,Hard seltzers come in many flavors. One company , White Claw,  has mango, black cherry and natural  lime.Another brand,Truly Spiked and Sparkling has even more flavors , including grapefruit and pomelo pomegranate, and lemon and yuzo. Smirnoff, the vodka people,have dipped their toes in the sparkling waters and offer such diverse flavors as watermelon and raspberry rose.

Hard seltzer is an intriguing idea. Will it be as popular as hard ciders and lemonades? Probably.  People will want a light and fizzy change of pace and hard seltzer will fill that bill.