LOUISVILLE, Ky, (WDRB) -- If you could sum up the year 2020 as a drink, what would it be? One Louisville company has come up with a flavor dedicated to this very unique year.
A little sweet, a little nasty. The beverage architects at Flavorman say it will either tickle your taste buds or totally turn you off.
Flavorman is an unassuming brick building on West 7th Street, but scientific magic is happening inside. The company designs beverages from the ground up for clients, everything from the flavor, ingredients, cans, and labels.
Pictured: The Flavorman beverage facility at 809 S. 8th Street in Louisville, Ky.
The year 2020 has been tough on everyone, to say the least. So the team at Flavorman decided to do what it does best: make a drink.
"We're standing around thinking, you know what, is there some way to make 2020 into a beverage? So we settled on four themes. We wanted to incorporate a sense of comfort, health, hope, and still embody all the events that have come up this year," said beverage architect Jennifer Mitchell.
The team tested out several different flavor combinations. Some were too sweet to reflect properly on 2020. Others tasted like "complete garbage" and "maybe a bit too harsh," according to Mitchell.
They landed on a bubbly combination of the following flavors: bittersweet grapefruit, honey, and ginger.
"It really was a runaway dumpster fire of a year, so we added in that spicy, smoky ginger," said Mitchell.
It's a fairly polarizing drink. You either love it or hate it. Mitchell said the first taste was a hit to the face for her, but after two big sips she was then compelled to power through and finish the whole can. Many that have tasted the drink, suggest it wouldn't taste too bad spiked with alcohol.
Flavorman produced a limited quantity of the drink so its employees could ring in 2021.
"We did a very limited run," Mitchell said. "This isn't for public release or anything. Just so that we can toast in the New Year and say this is it. We're done. We're done with 2020."
Now that it's done, Mitchell said there really isn't anything she'd change about it. The drink, that is.
"The harshness of the various flavors still somehow come together to create an overall taste that, while shocking, isn't all that bad," she said.
And if that doesn't sum up 2020, nothing will.
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