The inventors of Borrago # 47 Paloma Blend want to make a ‘grown-up’ drink that you can enjoy without any worries. The brew lends its name to a plant with blue, edible flowers; the borage, also known as starflower. The flower serves as a logo on the bottle and can be used to garnish the drink, but it is not clear whether the flower is also used to produce the drink. The crew behind Paloma Blend only want to mention that 6 botanicals have been used to give flavor to the distillate, but which these are must remain a big secret. They put so much time to achieve the desired result, experimenting with all kinds of herbs and botanicals, that it would be a shame to simply publish the entire recipe.
When we open the bottle and smell it, it soon becomes clear that this is not a bottle of water to which an artificial taste and smell has been added. The Paloma Blend really smells very strong. What you smell exactly is hard to describe. At first the smell seems somewhat medicinal, when you keep the nose a bit further from the bottle, the smell becomes a lot more pleasant. Of course you can bet on the six botanicals that have been used, but that is probably impossible. That lemon or a herb with lemon flavor is used is certain, the rest of the used herbs make the drink fresh, a little peppery and really provide a taste and smell that you will rarely encounter. We would dare to gamble on coriander and thyme, but it does not really matter, the combination of all six botanicals make it really unique.
You can use Borrago as a base for a mocktail or you can make a simple B&T with it, a Borrago & Tonic. We tried the # 47 Paloma Blend with a couple of different tonics and liked him best in Ledger’s Tonic. Be aware not to use too much Borrago as the taste is really pretty dominant. We believe that not everyone will appreciate the taste, when we opened the bottle and smelled the drink for the first time we also had our amount of doubts. However, we gave the Paloma Blend a fair chance and soon learned to appreciate it. It will depend on your own taste to determine the amount of Borrago is right for you in your B&T or mocktail, but once you have found the right mix, you may always want to have a bottle of Paloma Blend in the cupboard and experiment with it in other, more complex mocktails. It’s good to know that Borrago, besides being completely alcohol-free, also lacks sweeteners, so it does not contain any calories.
The creators of the drink also want to support a particularly noble goal. By giving a free bag of borage seeds as a present with every bottle sold in the webshop, they want to ensure that bees in your garden can fill their stomachs with the nectar of one of their most popular flowers, while you’re enjoying a pleasant mocktail.
More information about Borrago #47 Paloma blend can be found on www.borrago.com
