CALGARY -- After its first advertising campaign in an 1880 edition of the Calgary Herald, where it was promoted as an 'elixir', Cronk came back Wednesday.
The centuries-old beverage was reincarnated for 21st century lips by Calgary craft brewer Cold Garden, which recreated the drink using a blend of fancy molasses, camomile, green tea and sasparilla - but not sassafras like the original because sassafras is carcinogenic. It has four per cent alcohol.
According to Cold Garden brewer Trevor Cox, the rebirth of Cronk was not without challenges.
"We used a different type of molasses the first round," Cox said. "We used black strap (molasses) instead of fancy. It didn't ferment as well as we'd hoped - and it bascially tasted like straight molasses."
However, a second batch, made with fancy molasses, worked better, according to a few of the first taste testers.
"It tastes like apple juice and green tea mixed together," said one Cronk taster Wednesday.
The drink emerged out of the discovery by Calgary researcher Paul Fairie, who discovered the ads in old copies of the Calgary Herald and started a Tweetstorm that caught the attention of Cold Garden, which was inspired to try to recreate the elixir.
Cronk is available on the Cold Garden website.
