Wawa’s Beloved Peach Iced Tea Is Getting A Boozy Upgrade

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It’s been close to 60 years since the first Wawa opened up in southeastern Pennsylvania, which marked the start of the expansion of a regional convenience store empire that developed a massive cult following in the Mid-Atlantic defined by its hoagies, soft pretzels, and eternal blood feud with Sheetz.

Of course, you can’t talk about Wawa without mentioning one of its most popular offerings and one of the first things many displaced loyalists who’ve been deprived of the magical oasis for far too long will grab when they enter the store: a jug of peach iced tea.

In addition to being wildly delicious and refreshing, Wawa’a peach iced tea also serves as a solid mixer when you find yourself in possession of some vodka or other spirit in need of companionship (although thanks to its sugar content, it is very possible to have too much of a good thing—a lesson I once learned the hard way while spending three hours becoming very well acquainted with a Megabus toilet while nursing one of the worst hangovers of my life).

Those concoctions are pretty easy to whip up at home, but it’s still hard not to be intrigued by a new product Wawa is rolling out in conjunction with New Jersey’s Cape May Brewing Company: Shore Tea, a canned and boozy version of the beloved beverage.

According to Delaware Online, the hard peach iced tea (which clocks in at 4.5% ABV) will be making its grand debut on Thursday at an event held at a Wawa in Langhorne, Pennsylvania before hitting the taps at the brewery’s taproom in (you guessed it) Cape May on the following day (it’s slated to start hitting more stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware on July 25th).

This isn’t the first time Wawa has wandered into the alcohol space, as its coffee was the inspiration for a stout that dropped in 2018 and the chain’s strawberry lemonade served as the basis for a shandy that rolled out last summer.