Cold Brew!
Last up of the Sayso blends is Old Fashioned! This was a very interesting cold brew experience in a few ways. To start, there’s significantly less ingredients in these sachets (by weight) compared to the others. It was also clear right away that, based on the ingredients used and my experiences with the other blends, that this was a flavour that was 100% going to benefit from a much longer steep time…
As a person who does love a proper Old Fashioned, I definitely got the sense immediately after my first steep that this mix of ingredients really needs to be infused into something more substantial than just water to most properly convey the taste of its drink inspo – especially compared to all the other flavours. Whether that’s directly in whisky or a non-alcoholic equivalent. And, to be fair to Sayso, that’s exactly what they say to do on the packaging. So with that in mind I decided to throw the idea of evaluating based on cocktail accuracy out the window and just focus on the taste in front of me as a stand alone drink/flavour.
This was the most “thin” tasting/feeling of the bunch, and I think that’s really because it doesn’t have that aggresively bright and acidic lime note all the other flavours share. It is citrusy though, with a more pithy and aromatic orange peel flavour that comes through pretty clearly. Not a lot of high notes/brightness. The gentian root is also REALLY strong tasting and leaves its signature bold and bitter flavour on the palate long after finishing the sip. It was honestly a little much for me. I know I said I didn’t want to do the direct cocktail comparison, but it’s hard not to with this ingredient. I mean, an Old Fashioned shouldn’t be sweet, but it also should not be THIS bitter…
The one thing I really liked was the clove. It was just enough to give that sort of numbing quality that is almost liquor adjacent, but not super intense flavour wise. And, obviously, it riffs really well of this type of orange note.
I am excited to keep playing with these sachets – I think there’s lot of things they could be infused into (aside from spirits) that would be more complimentary than just the water route I chose to go with.
