Review: Graham’s Texas Tea Flavored Vodka
When absinthe essentially went dark in 2009, it handed over the reins to a replacement in the fad liquor department: Tea-flavored vodkas. These bad boys just keep coming and, thankfully, each is just about as good as the last — a claim which absinthe was never able to make.
This sweet tea vodka from Austin, Texas’s Treaty Oak distillery has a milder nose than most, but the mouthfeel is huge and the taste is, again, authentic — this blend claiming Nilgiri black tea, turbinado sugar, and Hill Country spring water in the mix. Sure enough, the darker sugar notes come through after awhile — especially as the finish lingers. My only complaint is a bit more bite than most of the other vodkas of this ilk — but that’s almost splitting hairs. This is certainly a quality product and a worthy part of the category — and cheap, too.
70 proof.
A- / $15
Graham's Texas Tea Flavored Vodka
$15
Pshaw. Absinthe went dark in ’09? If you look at what’s available now vs. 2009, youd see that several low quality products went dark, yes. But that’s because of the proliferation of higher quality brands and consumer education. Le Tourment Verte is a perfect example. It was pushed out of almost every market by higher quality products that matched it’s price point.
With top quality products like La Clandestine, the Jades, Ridge, Pacifique, Leopold Brothers, etc able to now distribute in much larger areas, the spread of high quality products has given absinthe a good foothold in the industry.
Brian – more than new products have stopped emerging at the rate they once were.
“Texas Tea”?
That either refers to oil (“Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.” – Beverly Hillbillies) or to promethazine/codeine cough syrup (“All because we cornered the market on that Texas tea” – UGK).
Either way, someone did not think the name through entirely.
The name Graham’s Texas Tea is appropriate, it has a wonderful full rich flavor and made in Texas.
While real absinthe fans will not blossom in numbers like the fad crapsitnhe fans did, the growth of real absinthe will be slow & steady, but also enduring. The good absinthe market will continue to steadily grow, especially as the crapsinthes disapear and stop leading people into believing they hate absinthe.