Tasting It: Flying Embers Kombucha

No hiding it, one of the perks of this blogging hobby is that I get to try new and different things. And it’s not just beer.

I was offered a chance to try a new line of “hard kombuchas.” Like the “hard Seltzer,” only made from fermented tea with probiotics. So here’s my disclosure: this product was sent to me for my comment.

Flying Embers was founded in 2017 by Bill Moses, co-founder and former CEO of Kevita sparkling products, which he later sold to PepsiCo. Following the sale, Moses started Fermented Sciences in Ojai, California. In December 2017, the office and fermentation lab was threatened by the Thomas wildfire. The facility, and most of the town, barely escaped the fire, and gave the brand its name.

Each of these brews is fermented with a mixture of bacteria and brewing yeast. It is apparently fermented out completely, to qualify it the have “0% sugar,” with sweeter added in the form of erythritol and stevia leaf. Besides the flavors tasted below, each style of Hard Embers adds live probiotics and root blend of Ginger, astragalus, turmeric, and ashwagandha. Each of these can is 4.5% alcohol by volume.

Flying Embers Ginger & Oak

There’s an old bread yeast and ginger ale smell. The drink pours cloudy yellow. There’s a fizzy head that’s gone as soon at the can is poured out. Besides the common root blend this also lists sarsaparilla as an ingredient.
The taste is still affected by the funky bread dough nose, like when they’re still proofing the day’s dough at Subway, or if you’ve ever tried to make root beer with bread yeast. Since I’ve had a slight bit of tummy distress, I’m willing to see if the probiotics help at all. But the carbonation could be helping just as much. Despite the nose, it’s a pretty easy drink. There’s a nice ginger ale burn. Where the “oak” comes from, I can’t say, maybe from various root herbs. I cant see pairing it with foods. Maybe more of a medicinal beverage, for relaxing.

It’s quite possible there may be a different level of “yeast” taste in each individual can, I think, moving on.

Flying Embers Grapefruit Thyme

A lighter yellow color. Fizzier pour. Much more of a grapefruit soda flavor, with a side of ginger. Wouldn’t be bad as a regular soda combination. This has less of a yeasty taste to it, but also a bit of artificial sweetener taste to it.

Flying Embers Lemon Orchard

With lavender, mint & ginger.
A lemonade smell with a bit of ginger ale at the edge of the nose. Pours fizzy but the head is gone pretty quickly. There is a lemon taste at the front, then, yes, the ginger stands behind it. The mint is not too strong, and stands to back up the other ingredients. Citrus and ginger make this taste most like a remedy without being too medicinal. Very little kombucha yeast in the way.

Flying Embers Ancient Berry

Ginger, Turmeric, Elderberry, Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry, Goji.

A decent berry smell under the pop top. Pours a little darker, nearly brown, little to no head, but some fizz. Berry taste is there as expected. As with all these kombuchas, no excessive sweetness. Again, enough ginger to give this some spice. A bit more yeast taste, in fact there are some yeasty dregs left at the bottom of the can.

This is only my first taste of kombucha, whether with alcohol or not. I will suppose that some yeasty taste will pop up in various cans at random. Still, they are interesting as fruity hard beverages go. It may be going against their intended purpose, but these might be all right as mixers, too.