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Barron Trump has officially entered the beverage aisle. The initial news broke in April after SOLLOS Yerba Mate<\/a>, a lifestyle beverage brand, announced the launch of its canned pineapple-and-coconut drinks. (A 12-pack retails for $39, which comes out to $3.25 per 12-ounce can.) Barron, a 20-year-old college sophomore and son of the current President of the United States, is one of the directors of the Palm Beach-based company.<\/p>\n According to a LinkedIn post<\/a> from the company, the name SOLLOS is a combination of the Spanish word for sun, \u201cSol,\u201d and its reverse, \u201clos,\u201d which is meant to represent a sunset. If you\u2019re confused because \u201clos\u201d is actually Spanish for \u201cthe,\u201d you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n The fabricated name isn\u2019t the brand\u2019s only faux pas. Its trademarked slogan, \u201cCreated in a Cabana<\/a>,\u201d suggests that yerba mate is a tropical drink, when it\u2019s actually native to South America. It touts health buzzwords like \u201cclean\u201d and \u201cfunctional,\u201d but beneath the beach-front marketing (\u201cborn in the sunshine state\u201d of Florida), the sugary energy drink barely nods to traditionally steeped yerba mate and its Indigenous purveyors.<\/p>\n Made from the leaves of the native South American Ilex paraguariensis<\/a>, yerba mate emerged more than a thousand years ago with the Guaran\u00ed<\/a> of Paraguay. (It was also consumed by the Charr\u00faa<\/a> of Uruguay and Tup\u00ed<\/a> of Brazil.) The drink remains a staple<\/a> across the Southern Cone (in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay), and is still enjoyed in a traditional method: The leaves are brewed in a gourd (or mate) and sipped through a perforated straw called a bombilla.<\/p>\n \u201cYerba mate isn\u2019t just a beverage but also a symbol of cultural identity,\u201d says Dr. Rafaela Vannuchi<\/a>, a Brazilian nutritionist. \u201cIts consumption is deeply intertwined with tradition and history, making it a cherished part of our heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n SOLLOS isn\u2019t the first company to transform yerba mate into carbonated soft drinks, explains Marcos Stubrin, the Argentine co-founder of MateCaps<\/a>, an organic yerba mate capsule company. In the U.S., ORGANICS Viva Mate by Red Bull<\/a>, Yerba Madre<\/a>, and PepsiCo\u2019s Yachak<\/a> all market similar canned mate drinks. Club-Mate<\/a>, a popular soda in Germany, has been around since the 1990s. And Barron isn\u2019t the first white \u201ccelebrity\u201d to sell a yerba mate beverage: Rapper Mackelmore<\/a> has been the creative director and an investor of CLEAN Cause<\/a>, a sparkling yerba mate, since 2022.<\/p>\n I\u2019m Uruguayan and, just like my Charr\u00faa ancestors, I drink yerba mate in its traditional form; I usually share it with my girlfriend several times a week. I\u2019ll never trade drinking yerba from a mate for drinking yerba in an energy drink \u2014\u00a0no matter how many new brands pop up on shelves.<\/p>\n The Weekly Checkout<\/p>\n Sign up for The Weekly Checkout to get the most up-to-date grocery news, tips, and highlights.<\/p>\n