an ode to duck oat milk

13 October 2022

I’ve been compiling a list of the things that I will miss the most when I move back home to the United States from Ireland. Currently, that list is quite small and includes mundane things like the cost of a croissant and coffee (currently less and 5 euros), the abundance of bookstores, and the consistent weather patterns (although I’d like to start seeing the sun more often, Ireland can you get on that?) However, the real thing that I am going to miss the most is a specific brand of oat milk.

This oat milk in particular.

From a UK based brand called Minor Figures. I have effectionately dubbed this brand “duck oat milk,” since, as you can see, the artwork depicts a woman in a duck costume.

In order to understand my love of Minor Figures it is important to first contextualize myself and milk. (If you didn’t think this was the kind of things you were going to get when you subscribed to this newsletter, you clearly don’t know me well enough).

First off, I am a lifelong cow’s milk drinker.

This is perhaps my greatest sin. Why I enjoy cow’s milk is still unclear to me. Regardless, we all have our vices, and for a while it appeared this one was mine. Then the food trend of non-dairy milk alternatives emerged. And I assumed, like previous food trends I would not fall victim to it. As someone with a contenious relationship to food (another topic for another day), I assumed I would sit idely by and drink my cow’s milk. However, there comes a time in everyone’s life where we must give in to ridiculous food trends, and I am no better than everyone else.

This began a couple of months ago, when my mother informed me that my sister thought she might have started devloping an intolerance to milk. This, bizzarely, is a thing that the human body can do. If one avoids consuming dairy products long enough, their body can start rejecting the dairy enzymes outright. This revelation on the part of my sister was not at all suprising, as my sister was not a milk drinker (no shame there), and did not consume other dairy products fairly regularly (shame here, Noosa yogurt is very good and why Molly rejected it I do not understand). Molly’s emerging lactose-intolerance however, should have been a warning sign for things to come.

In addition to my shameful cow’s milk consumption, I also reguarly eat yogurt and cheese and in my past life, I was an ice cream man, which by description required the consumption of dairy.

Now, where am I going with this? This is a lot of dairy-related annecdotes for something that was supposed to be about duck oat milk. Well, much like my sister, I think I’ve begun developing an intolerance to dairy. So…duck oat milk.

Now, Minor Figures’ duck oat milk has become a strange obsession to me. Not only does this brand make standard oat milk (described as oat m*lk on thier packaging), they also make cold brew, and lattes, and chai concentrate, all with oat m*lk and various birds on the packaging.

look at this!!! you can buy them in cans!!! they’re doing fun things!!

This in and of itself would not be anything worth documenting any further than an instagram story. However, Minor Figures’ merchandise does not stop there. You see, they also make baseball caps, and long sleeve tees with words on the sleeves, and sticker packs that include all of the guys on their packaging.

Now this, this could prove to be a problem. Because if there is one thing I love more than anything else, it is a fun sticker, and a long sleeve tee with words on the sleeves, and baseball caps. All of these things are things that I could order, and have shipped to me, and bring back to the United States without risk of expiration…

It is a problem. And I blame the ducks.

For now, I resist my bodies rejecting of lactose, take the bus to the specialty grocer that carries the duck oat milk, and lament the day that I will be without my beloved duck oatmilk.