Kalosa Spritz: haven't heard of them? Time to get familiar. They're the brand making truly delicious, naturally sweetened, pre-mixed alcoholic drinks. With barely any sugar and no aspartame these are fast becoming Peppersmith HQ's favourite Friday evening tipple. We caught up with co-founder Tori to learn a bit more about the brand...
We love your all natural low sugar spritzs, they are perfect for a summer's day. What inspired you to start up Kalosa?
Over the last few years there has been a major trend towards health and being more aware of what we are consuming. At first it was just in food products but it has started to spread into drinks and specificially alcoholic drinks too, people are drinking less but drinking better quality! We noticed that there was a real gap for a healthier and all-natural ready to drink product, one that delivered on flavour but wasn’t full of sugar and artificials. This led us to create Kalosa Spritz, derived from the Greek word Kalos, meaning good and beautiful.
We are big fans of naturally derived sweeteners like stevia and xylitol here at Peppersmith. How did you come up with the idea of using stevia to sweeten your drinks?
We didn’t have much choice but to use stevia as it is the only natural sweetener you are allowed to use in alcoholic drinks in the UK. The tricky part came with finding the right balance in the recipe as stevia can have a bit of an aftertaste if too much is used. It took a very long time to develop the flavours, going back and forth many times as even the tiniest change in ingredients can really change the flavour profile! We feel that we have now got our balance just right providing a bit of sweetness but not too much so it masks the taste of the other ingredients.
What were you doing before Kalosa?
In 2013 we launched our first brand, KÖLD Cocktails, KÖLD are Scandinavian inspired frozen cocktails in unique freezable pouches that you simply freeze and serve. They are all a double-measure of premium spirits and like Kalosa Spritz only contain 100% natural ingredients, however unlike Kalosa they don't use a sweetener. They are definitely a little more of a treat (but so worth it in our opinion).
What is Kalosa’s mission? Where do you see the brand in 10 years’ time?
With Kalosa Spritz we really hope to show people that it is still possible to have a delicious alcoholic ready mixed drink but one that doesn’t make you feel like you have had a weeks' worth of sugar and artificial sweeteners in one go. We want to revolutionise the alcoholic ready to drink sector (which is traditionally full of overly sweetened and artificial products) to meet this demand and be at the forefront of the healthier alcoholic drinks movement. We have so many plans for Kalosa Spritz, some include looking at different formats for the drinks, perhaps a can or a four pack, new flavours and we very excitingly have plans underway to make Kalosa Spritz available outside of the UK... watch this space!
We know our Peppersmith fans would love to try your naturally sweetened spritzs. Where are they available to buy?
We would love for your Peppersmith eaters to try our drinks. Kalosa Spritz is available in two flavours, Elderflower & Gin and Pink Grapefruit & Vodka, and you can currently find them on Ocado.com, GinKiosk.com or 31Dover.com. We will also be announcing some exciting new stockists soon over on our instagram @kalosaspritz.