BENGALURU: The essence of a ‘hybrid drink’ is to ideally retain the balance of tastes. When two or more traditional beverages are fused together, they form a drink that is flavourful and unconventionally unique. While many beverages may be fused to stand out from the sea of commonplace drinks, some may also be completely redesigned.
Let’s make it easier to understand by talking about ‘Heineken 0.0’. Essentially a non-alcoholic beverage, this drink not only tastes like beer but if I am to believe what some of my friends say, it even gives you a beer-like-high. While it can be mistaken for a fruit beer, one needs to understand that it is a malt beverage. It is the definition of a conventional beverage in an unconventional style.
However, to give you a counter example, let’s take ‘Proffee’ – a protein shake with coffee. While, on the surface of it, this drink may seem to fit right into the category of hybrid drinks, one must break it down to its key components to understand why it does not. While on one hand, coffee is a traditional beverage, it is important to understand that protein is only a health supplement. This eliminates it from the aforementioned category.
As hybrid drinks pave their way through the beverage industry, we can also see many conventional beverages following them, not too far behind. To mention a few, let’s take a look at ‘Desperados’ beer and ‘Bud light limerita’. While the former is a combination of beer and tequila, the latter, at 8 per cent ABV, is a beer mixed with a margarita cocktail.
Mixologists, who are always on the path to experimenting day in and day out, are coming up with hybrid drinks constantly. But since jumping on the bandwagon of a trend is a new trend in itself, it is only a matter of time till these ‘hybrid drinks’ take over the market place in a new package.