Is kombucha a magic elixir? In recent years, interest in healthful, natural beverages has pushed this ancient, fizzy, fermented tea into the mainstream. Now, two Asbury Park establishments are adding kombucha to their creative arsenal.
Watermark, well known for its adventurous cocktail program, is stirring the sweet-sour tea into cocktails like the Culture Club, in which turmeric- and apple-flavored kombucha is mixed with non-alcoholic ginger beer, pear vodka, bitters, muddled strawberries and a splash of grapefruit juice. Lip smacking.
Kombucha is coaxed into being by a live culture called a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast). Asbury Park’s Dark City Brewing applies a kombucha SCOBY to batches of its Summerfield ale. The cultures “provide a nice tartness with a great depth of flavor,” says Dark City co-owner Jaret Gelb, who adds fruit to some batches.
Owing to the SCOBY and a bit of sugar, kombucha naturally ferments to less than .5 percent alcohol by volume—well below the legal labeling limit. You can find it at Whole Foods and other stores. A few breweries (outside the state) market slightly higher ABV versions as kombucha beer or “kombrewcha.”
Dark City buys its SCOBY from Fine Health Kombucha in Bradley Beach. Another artisanal producer is Toms River-based Ciara’s Kombucha (sold at Whole Foods). Owner Ruth Patras named the company for her daughter, Ciara, who was born with congenital liver disease.
Ciara, 21, has been drinking her mom’s kombucha since she was 9 weeks old and has not needed the liver transplant that once seemed inevitable. Patras says she’s assembling a “panel of people who’ll have their alcohol levels tested” to see if drinking kombucha can moderate the effects of consuming alcohol.