Modern Beet

Gin and Red Tea Cocktail with Fresh Mint

1 shot gin (1.5 oz), chilled
1/2 c. red tea (I used Lipton PureLeaf Red Tea which is lightly sweetened — if using unsweetened, add 1/2 t. sugar), chilled
4 mint leaves

Mix gin and tea with a few ice cubes, and swirl a few times. Remove ice cubes. Garnish with mint leaves. Enjoy!

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A good friend of mine in the PR biz recently sent me a few sample packs of Lipton’s PureLeaf tea to experiment with in my tiny kitchen. I typically make most things from scratch, avoiding prepared and semi-prepared foods (for social, health, and economic reasons), but I decided to give it a try since, hey, it’s never a bad thing to broaden one’s culinary repertoire.

I brought it home on a wednesday, and by saturday we almost had a minor emergency: 60% of what I was going to experiment with was GONE! I guess I forgot to tell Steven not to drink all of it…

Anyhow, I tasted all the flavors, experimented a bit, and came to the following conclusions (as well as my favorite of the experiments, the gin and red tea cocktail listed above):

The Pros:
- Ingredient list is entirely pronounceable (you all know how I feel about processed foods); here’s the ingredient list for the Tangerine White Tea:

Brewed Tea (white and green leaves), Sugar, Natural Flavors, Citric Acid (provides tartness), Citrus Pectin.

- easy / convenient
- Steven digs it

The Cons:
- the teas have a fair bit of sugar — it’s less than soda or fruit juice, but certainly more than regular brewed tea that has no sugar (PureLeaf has ~16 grams / 8 oz serving)
- a similar version could be made at home for less $$$
- As with all individually bottled drinks, it has more packaging than is necessary

Anyways, I still have a few bottles left, and some ideas I have to use up the rest are:

– Green tea granita with basil slivers
- Freeze into popsicles (you can do this with any juice or sweetened tea — if you use unsweetened though it just seems like an ice cube)
- Use as the cooking water for rice to be used as the base for a rice pudding
- more cocktails!

And on a different note, I wanted to point out that even with my aversion to processed foods (or because of it), I think it’s necessary to keep a conversation open with the manufacturers that are producing the foods that feed the majority of the population. As consumers I think it is important to provide feedback to your food producers and sellers, whether it’s the farmer at the farmer’s market, the manager at the supermarket, or even simply the comment section of the website of a large food production company. By providing feedback and working together, we can let our food producers know what sorts of things we do and DO NOT want in our foods (I do not want High Fructose Corn Syrup in anything, for example), and consequently move towards a healthier, more natural, less processed food supply.

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