![]() It was here, something like five years ago, where Barclay was first introduced to what he called the mate soda “phenomenon.” He worked his way backwards from Berlin, seeking out Materva when he got back to the U.S., and then finally sampling the straight herbal variety. The highly caffeinated beverage, which the drink makers say “promotes a state of heightened alertness and relaxation,” combined with the company’s practice of eschewing traditional advertising mechanisms, won Club-Mate a devoted following across the Berlin nightlife scene and amongst hackers (people who wanted to stay up all night, essentially). Presumably, this is how mate made its way to Germany, where the producer Club-Mate was born in the early ’90s. Materva was originally bottled and sold in Cuba starting in the 1920s until the Cuban Revolution, when production was moved to the United States. You’ve probably come across a brand called Materva, which is usually stocked in bodegas carrying Latin American imports– it’s the golden can stamped with an old-timey red seal depicting a line-drawn mate gourd and the blessed herb, usually located next to the Coco Rico. Mate sodas, however, go back a bit further than 20-something Bard graduates who won’t stop saying “gap year” when we all know it’s just called funemployment. Usually, they picked up the habit from studying abroad in Argentina, or during a solo backpacking trip to Brazil. Typically they’re unironically rocking white people dreads and sucking on bombillas (special filtered straws that prevent you from choking on yerba mate herb gunk). Depending on your familiarity with psychedelic drugs and tolerance for an objectively horrible EDM sub-genre known as psytrance, it’s possible you’ve run into yerba mate drinkers in Brooklyn before. The drink remains popular in South America, Uruguay especially, where the old-school vessel has received an update in the form of plastic, silicone, or metal gourds. Yerba mate, a potent herbal tea, can be traced back to pre-colonial Brazil, where it was traditionally consumed from a gourd. Actually, mate drinks, carbonated brews especially, have developed something of a cult following in the world of underground electronic music. The new venture isn’t as random as you might expect, and even if the golden-shower-hued liquid looks the part, it’s not exactly a taurine-spiked pee drink he’s brewing. “So we were very lucky to have access to his resources and knowledge.” ![]() “H is father started working in flavor development, sourcing, and production decades ago in the Bronx,” he explained. (For reference, a cup of coffee contains around 95 mg.)īarclay and his two business partners, Jesse Rudoy and Julian Duron, started the company with help from an old friend who was “essentially born into” the soda business. “There’s around 75 mg of caffeine per bottle which is on par with most energy drinks,” Barclay told us. And the stuff ranks right up there with the energy-drink heavy hitters. ![]() And then, if you saw the full music video I dropped today, Audrey’s back and she absolutely crushed it.There’s no doubt Red Bull has staked its claim on the music industry (it just launched a web series, “Mavens,” dedicated to women in the industry), but how would you feel if we told you that things were going in the other direction, now that the music people are getting involved in the business of energized-drink making? It’s true: John Barclay of Bossa Nova Civic Club recently launched a yerba mate soda company called White Label. ![]() I think when I dropped the second video, they were like, “Well, Audrey did such an amazing job in the first music video,” and I think it was like a bit of whiplash.īut then when I posted the third video, people sort of started to realize the bit without me even really having to explain it that much. So it was always my plan to release all three.Īnd as I’ve mentioned before, it was sort of an homage to a trope of these, like especially early 90s Eurodance groups that would get a singer to sing the track and then if it became popular, they would just get an actress or a model to be in the music video.Īnd so it was an homage to that, but … this became so much bigger and it’s amazing that it found such a large fan base even outside of people who are fans of that music or even really knowledgeable about that music. So the first video I dropped July 28th, but I had all three videos shot and edited before then. ![]()
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