Optimist Drinks, a Los Angeles-based non-alcoholic beverage company, has launched the first of its first ready-to-drink offering: the Cali Spritz. After over two years of research and development, the result is a collection of riffs on the brand’s favorite cocktails.
The first of this collection, the Cali Spritz, launched on January 1. The canned beverages are free from alcohol and sugar, certified organic and made in Los Angeles from botanical ingredients, the company states.
“These are all riffs on the most popular cocktails that mixologists have been making using our original N/A spirits over the past 2.5 years,” say co-founders Tom Johnstone and Lisa Farr Johnstone in a news release. “People ask at every sampling and event if they could buy the cocktails we were serving ready-to-drink, so we were inspired to develop these greatest hits.”
The Cali Spritz with a Cali Twist
The company’s first RTD beverage, the Cali Spritz, takes their Cali Amaro spirit — a citrussy, herbal, woody blend that is reminiscent of a bitter, old-school Amaro but with a contemporary Cali twist, according to the company — and mixes it into a bittersweet, effervescent, non-alcoholic-spritz-cocktail.
The Cali Spritz is made with organic botanicals, including orange, pink grapefruit, mandarin, bay laurel and wormwood, and is best served over ice with a slice of orange, the company states. When developing the recipes for these RTD non-alcoholic cocktails, Optimist added extra botanicals recognized for their so-called adaptogenic properties, including ashwagandha and schisandra, both to enhance flavor and amplify the potential for these cocktails.
The new offering will soon be followed by other twists on popular drinks.
The Cali Spritz will be available online and through select retailers in packs of four for $24.
