Review: Besos De Oro

Updated September 2019 - Besos de Oro has been relaunched, please see  - https://alternativeliqueurs.com/

Vegan cream liqueur made with brandy and horchata (chufa milk). The closest thing to vegan Baileys. Besos de Oro, meaning 'kisses of gold' launched in the UK last year after an award-winning debut in Spain in 2014. We had a little snifter to see if it tastes as good as it looks.

Horchata de Chufa is a popular Spanish drink made from chufas, sugar and water. It's a dairy-free creamy milk drink usually served ice cold, or occasionally hot. Chufas, also known as tiger nuts are the tubers of a type of sedge plant and look like wrinkly beans. 

You may remember Tiger White milk which was a chufa milk sold in the UK in 2004-2005, but sadly no longer available. You can buy chufa nuts very cheaply though in health food shops - we got ours from Natural Foods in Nottingham

Besos de Oro is a blend of brandy from Jerez and concentrated horchata from Valencia. As a drink, it's creamy, very sweet and packs quite a punch of brandy. As with other plant milks, the horchata makes the drink just slightly floury. We didn't find the flavour nutty though, as other reviewers have suggested. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're missing Baileys, Besos de Oro could be your fix.

It's great in coffee - we tried it without milk and it makes the coffee sweet and creamy. We were really happy to see that it didn't separate at all, even poured straight into boiling black coffee. You can use Besos de Oro in other hot drinks, including hot chocolate and lattes.

Round Up

This is an excellent, if niche product, for people who like cream liqueurs, but are vegan or on a dairy-free diet. The product could comfortably sit on the shelves at Tesco and sell in its own right, but the drinks market is very competitive and the big brands will probably crowd it out.

Besos de Oro will hopefully become more widely available in the UK. The company is currently looking for stockists. At the moment you can buy it from The Drink Shop or through the company's Facebook page.

Besos de Oro - Facebook

The Drink Shop - Besos de Oro

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Veganoo Score: ★★★★★
Besos De Oro - Chufa cream liqueur
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The Good: Creamy, stable in hot drinks

The Not-so-Good: Very sweet

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Footnote: Ingredients

Here is the ingredients panel from the pack we reviewed.
(Brandy, Chufas, Sugar, Water)

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