Two Freising students from LMU and TU have managed to create a drink that could soon be celebrated all over Germany.
Freising
- Mats Thede still can't really believe it: Her alcoholic sparkling water with a fruit flavor, which was born in the cathedral city, is just about to take off.
Above all, the genesis of the tipsy water “Mr.
Seltzy “adventurous in retrospect: The business administration graduate lost his job in Malaysia due to the Covid pandemic, that's the only reason why he went back to his long-time friend Nicolas Jahnke in Freising.
As a food and biotechnology student, he was experimenting with innovative beverages.
The idea
Their common idea to try Hard Selzer was obvious, because this sparkling water has been developing a hype in America for some time. Why? Thede explains it this way: Men and women alike like to drink Hard Selzer as a trendy mixed drink for hot days - it is refreshing and at the same time without high alcohol content. In Germany, however, there are currently only very few providers, because the trend only recently spilled over. So it was the perfect time for the two friends to try their hand at their own European hard selzer. Because there is one thing they didn't really like about the American version: In America, sugar is fermented for this purpose, which is why the drink is largely sold as a beer version.The students, on the other hand, wanted it to be easier to taste - that's why they opted for wine.
The development
Admittedly, the first attempts in the small student room in Freising were accompanied by numerous failures, until finally the taste and the verve were right.
Of course, they also tried out the few Hard Selzers that already exist in Germany.
The result of this field study was rather sobering.
“There you can find the wildest things, but they don't taste good at all,” says Thede.
They and their sparkling trendsetter were quickly accepted into the Drink Innovation Campus program of the Munich University of Applied Sciences, after which an investor from Hamburg soon knocked on the two friends.
The fact that they have definitely shown a good nose with their summer drink is shown, among other things, by the efforts of the Coca-Cola company, which is currently trying to establish itself on the market with its own hard selzer.
But no product will taste as good as Mr. Seltzy, Thede is certain of that.
But how did the logo on the Freising beverage invention come about?
An octopus, according to Thede, is a clever and adventurous animal that with nine brains always keeps a clear head and is still always ready for fun.
And that is also possible with sparkling water, because it has little alcohol - to be precise: five percent.
The taste
There are currently three flavors from Mr. Seltzy: apple, mango and lime - but there are already a few more in the pipeline.
What is also important to Thede: The Hard Selzer contains only 30 kcal per 100 ml - so it is also a drink for the slim line.
Thede and Jahnke want to donate three percent of sales to international drinking water projects, and Mr. Seltzy also relies on climate-neutral productions.
Richard Lorenz
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