GFIW: Cîroc vodka, May 3

I know studies show that distilled alcohol is gluten-free, because gluten does not get through the distillation process, but if you don't want to risk it, this French gem, Cîroc, is made from grapes. Vodka has always been my drink of choice, so it is nice to know there are options. I enjoyed a glass with soda and a lime last night at the PIL show at the House of Blues. Excellent all around.

Argo Tea!!

One of my favorite places to get a drink in Chicago, as in a refreshing drinks, not a getting-my-buzz-on drink is Argo Tea. I love that is it a local chain, and they have so many fun drinks. I am not a coffee drinker so when I first discovered Argo Tea a few years ago I was in heaven.

My favorite tea since day one has been the green tea ginger twist, which is iced green tea with carbonated water and fresh ginger. A couple of years ago the drink disappeared and I was gutted, and every time I was in an Argo I would fill out a comment card asking to bring it back. Now, I realize that I single-handedly did not bring this wonderful drink back, but obviously a lot of people felt the same way. So when I stopped by yesterday during the Spring heat wave, for a cool drink, I was so excited to find they had it again. Of course now my question was ... is it gluten-free??

I asked the people working there, and they kind of shrugged and said that probably all the drinks had gluten. I was again gutted. I asked if they had any packaging I could look at to see the ingredients, and one of the employees brought out a nutritional chart, but it did not give any ingredient information.

I then thought to myself...aha, it is a weekday and between business hours so I called their main office. I am so glad I did, because I came to learn that all of their specialty drinks are gluten-free...all of them!! This includes all of their syrups. The employees seemed very pleased that I found out, and now they can pass on that info to other customers, and best of all, I got to enjoy my green tea ginger twist once again!! The bad thing about my favorite drink...I can down it in about 60 seconds if I am not careful. For a list of their yummy speciality drinks look here.

They also have a pretty impressive loose tea selection, and I found out that all of those are also gluten-free, with the exception of the rooibos caramel. In addition to their teas they also serve pre-packaged salads that are gluten-free, except for the teriyaki salmon. The quinoa salad looked super yum, and I would have tried it if I could handle quinoa. There are also a few Argo Tea locations in Manhattan.

I love the idea of carbonated water in my iced tea and makes it a refreshing alternative to sugar-laden soda (which I really can't stand anyway, I would choose plain water over soda any day). I realized I have all the ingredients at home....green tea, seltzer, simple syrup and fresh ginger, and am going to try to recreate this at home. I think I could drink this all day.

What I want to know is why is this gluten-free information not available anywhere? I even tried to search from my phone while I was in the shop and could not find any info online when searching 'argo+tea+gluten-free'. It is a shame, because not only are they missing out on a huge market, there are many potential customers missing out on yummy drinks!

Je t'aime Argo Tea!!

GFIW: Nestlé's Abuelita Mexican hot chocolate, March 15

Oops, with all of the excitement of Z's birthday I missed posting a GFIW last week, so I will make it up this week with a real good one.

With a chill still heavily in the air, nothing much tastes better than Mexican hot chocolate. I discovered this treat many, many years ago when still eating gluten, and you can imagine my elation when I called Nestlé to confirm this is indeed gluten-free. Abuelita hot chocolate has a unique spicy flavor and is a great afternoon treat. Z loves this too and refers to it as "mommy's hot chocolate".

Be sure to buy it in disk form as shown above, and not instant as it is not gluten-free.

Enjoy!