When it comes to summertime drinks, Iced Teas (not of the Long Island persuasion) become a big deal. Hence why the likes of Monin and ODK do a great selection of different flavours.
For the purposes of this Blog, we will focus on 3;
But looking at our website, there’s a whole plethora or other flavours including Tangerine, Rooibos, Rooibos & Vanilla, Matcha and Chai. As well as White & Green Tea Concentrates.
The traditional way to use these would be simply to recreate some of those famous brands of premixed Ice Tea flavours in bottles. You need to add 30ml of Concentrate to either Water or Soda and et voilà!
Now let's get the first thing out of the way… Cost. Let's just take Monin Concentrates and round up slightly. At the time of writing, Monin Peach Tea is under £12 a litre. But to use £12 as the example, that’s 33x 30ml Servings at 36p per serve assuming you’re using Tap Water or Soda off the Gun. If using premium Bottled Soda, then maybe add 75p or whatever your price is. Now when you search out your buying Prices of branded Ice Tea, I’m sure you’ll agree that Syrups are a huge saving.
Isn’t this just a bit boring?!
Well maybe. But you can easily upgrade these serves too.
Before we even go down the Cocktail route, let's stick to the Non-Alcoholic and upgrade them slightly by tapping into 2 of Monin's own trends. MoninFusion and Swicy!
Okay now not strictly MoninFusion at this level, we’ll come on to that, but the fusion element of using different flavours. For example, an Elderflower Tonic with Raspberry Tea is fantastic. The same goes for Mediterranean Tonic and Peach Tea Syrup. Adding these very simple twists to a menu with products you already sell will enable you to add bigger cash margins and profits to sales!
The Swicy aspect comes into play with the use of Ginger Beer. Any of the Tea flavours combined with Ginger Beer will give you that Sweet and Spicy profile. Raspberry & Ginger, Peach and Ginger. LEMON and Ginger. They’re all great combos.
I’m sure if you’ve got this far, imagining how to use these Tea Concentrates in Cocktails won’t be too much of a stretch. There are of course many applications. But let's focus on the big sellers. Our first recommendation is to adapt a Gin & Tonic Menu. Having had a little play in the studio, we can confirm that a Gin and Tonic made with Mediterranean Tonic for example and a 30ml splash of Raspberry Tea Concentrate produces quite an exquisite Drink. There is already (albeit a small one) a Gin and Tea Trend. So we know these two things combine well. We know Raspberry and Gin work. So add them all together and you have a totally new concept for Menus to drive spend.
To then focus on Whiskey, any Cocktail Enthusiasts will know that Southern Comfort back in the day had a big Peach Tea serve called the Southern Peach Tea. The flavours just worked so well together. Even when the Southern Comfort trend died, the Whiskey and Peach Tea trend lived on.
To make;
Steve the Barman obviously wanted to test out some Rum serves too. We can confirm Rum works and so does Spiced Rum. We made Mojito Riffs with all flavours and all were polished off rather quickly! The recipes needed a bit of tweaking as the Tea Concentrates are not really Sugar replacements. But they do add a touch of Sweetness. And as mentioned earlier, probably enough sweetness for most people.
These recipes just scratch the surface. There are many other recipes you could play with. Even a Raspberry Tea Daiquiri came out to play after the Mojitos!