A Shloer Celebration (Review)

To celebrate my sister's wonderful news that she had won the role of Ambassador for a leading baby product manufacturer, I decided to throw a dinner party.

Of my ten invited guests, six were under 18, one was tee total, two were breastfeeding and one was driving. That didn't leave many takers for any alcoholic accompaniment to the meal!

I decided to serve Shloer as a "natural wine alternative".  Shloer claims to use "only the best ingredients to create a delicious non-alcoholic sparkling drink" and add that  "All varieties make a tasty grape-based alternative to wine, suitable for all the family - especially those who don’t want to indulge in alcohol." 

Perfect!

The table was set with the last of the Christmas napkins being put to good use. The Shloer was on ice, the dinner was ready to be served and the guests arrived.

We didn't waste any time pouring the Shloer.

We had two White Grape varieties of Shloer:

• Apple and White Grape
• White Grape and Elderflower

The elegantly curved glass bottle gives the Shloer a very "grown-up" feel which, of course, our under-18s appreciated.

I thoroughly enjoyed the clean, fresh, light taste of both flavours. For the benefit of this review I asked each of my guests what they thought of their wine alternative and these were some of the responses for the Apple and White Grape:

"it has the smell of ripe apples"


"it's like the explosion of juiciness you get with the first bite of an apple"


"no synthetic after taste like with some juice drinks"


"like the smell in Swiss villages at grape pressing time in September"


"it's yum!"


"I like the bubbles"


"I don't like apple juice, I don't like grape juice and I don't like this!"

You can't please all of the people all of the time!

The White Grape and Elderflower proved to be less popular with most of the guests. Elderflower does have a strong, flowery perfume that can be a bit off putting if you are not familiar with it.

One observation was that "it smells like bubble bath".

Apart from our one very hard to please guest who didn't like it all, most thought it was  certainly drinkable but didn't feel that the grape was able to balance the overpowering elderflower.

However, the one guest who liked Elderflower loved it. I guess that is just a matter of taste.

Despite a leaning towards the Apple and White Grape variety, both bottles were finished and did certainly add to the party atmosphere.

Shloer contains no preservatives, artificial colours, sweeteners or flavours and is available from all major supermarkets.