Twisted Tea "Raspberry" Iced Tea

Raspberry isn't my favorite flavor, but I don't hate it. Good things can be made with raspberry, but these things need to be in moderation. I don't want something that's screaming raspberry at me like the peach tea hit me with peach. I'm much more confident in my peach drinking ability then my raspberry drinking ability. I'm not sure if it's raspberries or me, but it's probably me. In fact, forget I even questioned it. I think I have not mentioned thus far that the lack of carbonation in these Twisted Teas has made them dramatically better in my estimation then many of their competitors. I don't understand why people add carbonation to hard iced tea or hard lemonade. They are not intended to be carbonated beverages.

The beverage pours pretty much as you would expect, and, much like the peach version of this beverage, the raspberry has not imbued the beverage with a considerable change in color. Side by side, I would not be able to tell the difference between this and the regular tea. Well, that is until I took a whiff. This smells of raspberries much like the peach tea smelled of peach. I suppose, if you're going to put a flavor prominently on the label, it should probably be featured in the beverage. It looks like that will be the case with the raspberries. I hope that translates to a nicely balanced tea.

The first tip is, indeed, fairly well balanced. There might be a touch too much raspberry, but the tea is coming through pretty well, and the sweetness is not overbearing. This isn't to say that there isn't too much sweetness, as pretty much all of these beverages could tone the sweetness down quite a bit. Nevertheless, tea is often sipped on a back porch down here in the south, and this would sip okay.

Tip-in is sweetness, raspberry, and tea. It is those three in that order, and I'm not sure that it shouldn't be the other way around. The middle pulls the raspberry to the front, and the sweetness goes to the middle, but the tea is still the background, and I think it should probably still be more forward. The finish is relatively unremarkable with raspberry stems joining the raspberry that holds on for the trail off with a slight alcohol bend.

Bottom Line: After 3 Twisted Tea beverages, I think they might be the best of the hard iced teas.

3.0/5