If you Google “Frog Juice,” you’ll get myriad suggestions for all sorts of products you may need (paints, sealants, or card games) and a product or two you may not need (amphibian secretions, for example). Save yourself the confusion and add “Kombucha” to the search. Better still, drop by the Boocherie on Sutherland Avenue, order a drink, and sit a spell.
Frog Greishaw landed in Knoxville in 2017 following a 17-year stint in Chicago, which is where the idea for Frog Juice Kombucha was born. A friend asked her to take her SCOBY – the acronym for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast – off her hands, and she agreed. Frog had been working as a bartender and read somewhere that kombucha was a good cure for hangovers. So, she started “messing with it,” and by the following year, an idea started to take hold.
“I got better with it over time and took it to a music festival for my camp. One of the women in my camp, who’s a world-traveling yoga instructor, said she’d had kombuchas from all over the world and I should make mine, that it was good. I set up the business in Chicago in 2014.”
It was an operation that began in her kitchen, and when she started looking for a new city to call home, Knoxville had “the most green lights.”
“When I was scouting Knoxville, one thing I noticed was that change was coming. People were gravitating towards the culture of wanting to take care of themselves,” she says.
Frog Juice was already in stores in Chicago, but by 2019, Frog was working steadily on expanding the product and refining its branding. She and her business partner, Ben Clingner, who has more than 20 years of brewery experience, prioritized the importance of keeping everything local, from the canning line in North Knoxville to buying most of their ingredients from local and regional farmers. With his wealth of knowledge, Ben helped Frog grow from making 100 gallon batches a day to 300 gallon batches a day with efficiency. Today, Frog Juice can be found in more than 180 retail spaces in East Tennessee.
Kombucha is a functional beverage, one that ferments and metabolizes sugar into probiotics. Frog says it doesn’t quench your thirst as much as it feeds your body’s function, which is particularly ideal for those who seek to live a sober lifestyle.
“Two years ago, I finished a business plan for a hotel that was going to offer a non-alcoholic bar. It was a $2 million project, but that was February 2020,” she says. “But then this bar fell into our laps and it just made sense. We’re working on our Safe Bar Certification. We’re meeting with some recovery centers who want to have safe places to have events, hang out, and see that a sober existence is possible.”
The Frog Juice Boocherie opened on June 1 of this year and enjoys a steady rotation of food trucks, adults-only events, and locally made kombucha on tap. For the novice kombucha drinker, Frog suggests Blueberry Basil as an easy starter, along with Fruity Booty. (For those who want to start strong, try the spicy Pineapple Jalapeno.)
“We’re just trying to make something that’s good for you, that tastes good, and then make it enjoyable and fun,” says Frog.
Learn more about Frog Juice and the Boocherie at FrogJuiceKombucha.com, or follow them on Facebook (@FrogJuiceKombucha) and Instagram (@frog_juice_kombucha).
