Booze-free cocktail cookies bring bold flavor
The big picture: Chicago company Royce+Reign makes espresso martini, old fashioned and margarita-flavored cookies with real alcohol that retains the flavor but burns off in the baking process, making it a zero-proof treat.
A flight of all three is $16, and two cookies of one flavor are $13.
Flashback: Jessica Lang started Royce+Reign (named after her godchildren) late last year. Lang had been diagnosed with POTS a few years earlier and was limiting alcohol to keep her symptoms under control.
The founder also jokes that she was born with a sweet tooth.
What they're saying: "In one way, it's combining two things that I really love," Lang tells Axios. "But I also see in the market this trend of people who are sober curious, and were looking for new ways to socialize that aren't so alcohol focused."
State of play: After many tests with food scientists, Lang landed on a pâté du fruit filling for the old-fashioned and margarita cookies.
The jelly-like texture of the old fashioned is where the bitters of the cocktail are meant to hit after tasting the orange-essenced, smoky bourbon-tinged cookies.
The margarita has a salty, agave center between sweet lime cookies.
The espresso martini has a marshmallow filling in a chocolate sandwich.
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