Founded in 2018, BLK & Bold got its start selling coffee beans. The company, which is black-owned and a certified B Corporation, expanded their offerings over the past year to include several 7.5 oz. RTD offerings.

We sampled several of their RTDs, including Unsweet Cold Brew, Nitro Sweet Cold Brew and Nitro Caramel Cold Brew (their web site shows an additional Sweet Cold Brew SKU as well). All three contain zero grams of sugar and are under 20 calories per can. Caffeine content is between 140 and 160 mg per can and is prominently displayed on the back panel.

Inside the can, you’ll find some pretty nice tasting cold brew that can certainly hold its own in the category. This is especially true of the two unsweetened cold brews, with the flagship Unsweet Cold Brew showing that BLK & Bold has coffee that’s both bold and smooth from start to finish. The Nitro Caramel Cold Brew, which is also unsweetened, drinks like a coffee lover’s approach to flavored coffee. Both the nitro and the flavoring add depth of body, which is a nice approach as opposed to adding sweetener. 

Finally, there’s the Nitro Sweet Cold Brew, which takes a unique approach of using allulose as its sole sweetener. The sweetness definitely tastes much better than other sugar substitutes, but calling it “lightly sweet” would be more fitting than “Sweet.” That’s fine by us, especially since it doesn’t get in the way of the flavor of the cold brew and, like the flavored variety, feels like something that a coffee lover will enjoy.

Packaging definitely fits with the BLK & Bold name – quite literally. All of the labels have a black background and the label utilizes block lettering in a variety of places, which certainly helps the product to have a bold appearance to it. The BLK & Bold logo is one of those elements, which is further stylized by including a gold outline of a crown. We definitely like the look of the product and it feels like something that would catch your eye in retail.

However, we think there’s some room for improvement, particularly with the slightly busy front panel. While the label copy mostly reads from the top down, which is always best for readability, we think that there are several callouts that could be moved to another location or eliminated to keep things tight. We’d start with the “smoove operator” badge, which doesn’t seem to add anything but is given prime real estate, and we’d also like to see the calories and sugar callouts made more readable and perhaps placed somewhere else on the front panel. 

Tweaks aside, we’re pretty impressed with BLK & Bold. Their RTD offerings are solid, especially in how they cater to the coffee drinker, and we like the look and feel of the brand. There’s a nice foundation here for the brand to continue to build on.