Joe Jonas x Ohza Sparkling Sangria

Going to the packy, u want an Ohza?

As a child, I was too homesick/gay to go to Jewish sleep away camp so I would summer at a Second City improv class in Hollywood, also attended by Frankie Jonas (A.K.A. the Bonus Jonas). Frankie Jonas was not that good at improv.

Frankie and I have since gone our separate ways, he to host a reality show on ABC and me to gaze at my navel. But I have been thrust back into the crazy world of the Jonas Family this week to review the canned cocktail company Ohza’s sangria collaboration with Joe Jonas ($49 for a 12-pack).

Joe Jonas is apparently really into sangria. As he said in the press release for this drink, which came out in June, “sangria is my favorite beverage and I've been perfecting my recipes for years serving to friends & family poolside and at any gatherings.”

Sangria is the strangest drink to be really into. Fruit is the primary flavoring agent, so there is no point in using anything but the most garbage of wine. Sangria is the last frontier of celebrity alcohol products; the last kid to be picked in dodgeball.

But the Jonases really like it. I rewatched the Jonas Brothers documentary for this, and in literally minute four Nick says to Joe: “I need a coffee and a sangria then I’ll be good to go.” Why is this family obsessed with sangria? Have the Jonas Brothers been doing subliminal spon for Big Sangria this whole time? Is Joe about to chop up some oranges and preheat the oven to 450 for patatas bravas?

Joe Jonas became a co-owner of the brand with the release of this product, Ohza’s first outside of the mimosa space. As Ohza’s CEO Ryan Ayotte said of the partnership, “Joe's personality and aesthetic are a direct match with the Ohza vibe.”

Ohza is allegedly a successful canned mimosa company, and each can has just 140 calories and no added sugar. No offense, but isn’t everyone in the healthy-canned-cocktail-that-tastes-like-shit market? Everything is just gen-Z sans-serif SkinnyGirl.

Ayotte founded the brand in 2019 after trying and failing to make mimosas from scratch on his boat off of Cape Cod. His Vineyard Vines got all wet and sticky. He knew there had to be a better way. So he did what any rational person would do: start a direct-to-consumer canned cocktail brand.

Ohza is definitely not as “cool” or “vibey” as, say, JuneShine. It is, in essence, a Mass-Hole themed canned cocktail brand. For Us, By Us. Which is brave: High Noons and White Claws have such a stranglehold on the Boston 26-year old girlie market.

But Ayotte is the man to disrupt the market. He is the archetypal Falmouth, Chubbies shorts kind of guy. I can only find one video of him online, in which he says about his own product “that’s pretty good, bro.”

In this way, perhaps Joe Jonas is the “direct match” for Ohza. Joe is the most sanitized, neutered pop star with no discernible personality except that he wears funky button downs.

Joe’s jobs post Jo-Bros knows no lows. In 2015, Joe founded the metrosexual pop-rock supergroup DNCE. To me, DNCE looks like what Republicans think Democrat-run cities look like:

It’s like, where did Universal Music find these Downtown Sim looking folx???

DNCE went into retirement in 2018 so Joe could go back to his one true passion: endorsing things. And honestly, I don’t blame him. Riding on your #throwback coattails is precarious, and the ride could end at any moment. I think the Jonas Brothers, and especially Joe, understand that their level of fame is like being in one of those money booths where you catch all the cash you can in one minute.

In the past year alone, Joe invested in a wellness cookie, became the spokesperson of a Texas anti-litter campaign, became the spokesperson for a surgical procedure to correct astigmatism and became the spokesperson for botox for men (it’s self-care!!!!). And in one of my favorite moves, he partnered with Expedia last year to lend “a helping hand” to people getting ready to travel after the pandemic. Literally: Expedia sent 550 3D-printed molds of Joe Jonas's hand to unsuspecting customers. Ask yourself: what would you do with a cast of Joe Jonas’s hand, in blue? Would you say, in the words of David Guetta and Bebe Rexha, “I’m Good (Blue)”? Or would you put it on your coffee table as a magnificent centerpiece: “Um yeah, this is a cast of Joe Jonas’s hand, in blue,” you would say, struggling to explain how you got here.

Ok but put Joe Jonas on Pandora

And now there is the sangria. Joe partnered with Ohza to make a red and a white version. The red is a raspberry and blueberry-based drink, while the white leads with pear and peach. I meant to buy both flavors, but I was probably gazing at my navel too hard and accidentally bought two 12-packs of white sangria. So now I have 23 Joe Jonas white sangria cans sitting in my refrigerator.

Honestly, they’re gross. They taste artificial and sweet. There was no actual peach or pear essence, but a sort of Fruit (Haribo’s version).

Trulys and White Claws are effective because you can drink them lukewarm, when you forget to bring your cooler out to the Cape. I did this test (sort of like the Bechdel Test in that it is a test) on an Ohza sangria and the confluence of the sweet fruit with the bubbles was awful at room temp.

Imagine having eight of these sweet, fructose-y drink at Walden Pond on July 4th. You would die. You would die! Leave the Back Bay girlies to rest with their eight White Claws at Walden Pond on July 4th.