Review: Twisted Tea Extreme Blue Razz (Canada-only)

I have a weakness for iced tea flavoured drinks so you'll see me write about them once in a while.  Twisted Tea in Canada is now pretty much a completely different brand than Twisted Tea in the United States - all the Twisted Tea offerings in Canada are vodka-based beverages while they're malt-based in the United States. Malt based-Twisted Tea does still exist in Canada but only in 355mL glass bottles but I don't know how long it will be until that one is no longer sold in Canada, the canned, vodka based version does pretty darn well.

I was at my local liquor store and noticed not one but two new products by Twisted Tea. One was a Pineapple version of Twisted Tea and one was an "Extreme" version in Blue Razz flavour. I'm assuming that the "Extreme" version of Twisted Tea is to compete with brands like Mike's Harder and whatnot. In Canada, the Extreme edition is 7% ABV while in the United States, it's 8% ABV.

Appearance: The colour of the Blue Razz drink has almost a Ginger Ale kind of look to it - a light golden amber colour to it.. tea with a slight orangeish hue to it. Moderate amount of carbonation.

Aroma: The first whiff I get from it was overly candy forward. So yeah, I'd say that this a bit reminiscent of the faux Blue Raspberry candy/drinks/freezies from my childhood. There's also a hint of peach and a whole bucket of sugar and a just a hint of tea. I can already tell you that this is going to cause a good amount of hangovers this coming summer on the Prairies.

Taste: Incredibly sweet with a sugary "fruity" chewy candy kind of vibe to it like Sour Patch Kids, though the "blue razz" isn't anywhere near as that sweet chemically blue coloured beverage us 80s/90s kids drank nearly every day for school lunches.. damn, we ingested a lot of garbage growing up. There's a hint of tea, a hint of peach-like fruitiness and that's pretty much it. Slight bite of vodka at the end.

Overall Thoughts: Definitely out there to compete with Mike's Harder series.. will it outsell Mike's? Probably not but it will sell well on the Prairies. I've been wondering for a while when they were going to come out with some new flavours.. this wasn't one I was expecting, I was hoping we'd finally see strawberry flavoured Twisted Tea or something along those lines. I'm wondering why they went with 7% while the American malt version went with 8%? I'm assuming there's some sort of law in Canada to not have it appeal to those under the age of 18/19. Lastly: I was expecting a blue hue to this "Blue Razz" drink.