Original lemonade is still the best, frankly, and though it doesn’t taste like much other than a mixture of sparkling water, alcohol, and sugary lemonade, it’s not so bad. Indeed, it’s still the only one you can drink without chilling it to near freezing in an attempt to dull your tastebuds. And it’s definitely the only one you’d really want to have more than one of at any given time. Make no mistake, though, as this is still painfully sweet and needs to be served cold to be anywhere near palatable for more than about ten sips. But of the Mike’s Hard Lemonade hybrid flavors, the Pineapple Mandarin is far and away the winner.
Though it has the same alcohol content as the rest of the Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavors out in the world, there’s something about the pink grapefruit that makes the malt liquor flavor really shine through. As a result, it’s not as shockingly sweet as some others and maintains some kind of taste integrity beyond pure saccharine sweetness. What this means is that, in theory, these flavors work nicely together. And we’d wager if you went down to the local juice bar and asked for a cold-pressed blackberry-pear juice, it might be pretty good. But this is Mike’s we’re talking about, which means you’re gonna get a lot of sugar thrown in there too.
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But if you’re jonesing for something other than the original lemonade that still packs a tart punch, it’s absolutely the way you’ll want to go. Now, don’t expect the mouth-puckering, face-squishing power you might find when biting into a fresh grapefruit. Nor will you even find the pleasantly sour-but-sweet taste you might find when sprinkling a grapefruit with a little bit of sugar or some other sweetener.
Among today’s hard seltzers, which offer plenty in the way of watery artificial flavors, this sparkling lemonade indeed stands out more than it has in decades. You may never dream of handing a bottle to someone who grew up with the stuff, but getting someone to try one for the first time would likely elicit more pleasantly surprised reactions than anyone would be willing to admit. Mike’s Hard Lemonade may be a punchline in the drinks world, but the brand’s success is no joke. After launching a blend of vodka, natural juices, and soda water in Canada in 1996, the company jumped stateside in 1999 and swapped out the vodka for a malt base.
Here, it’s pretty quickly overcome by an intense blast of sweetness. A melody of tropical fruit flavors perfectly blended into a refreshing tasting and sessionable punch. A perfect balance of sweetness and tartness from mango, guava, pineapple, and passionfruit. The best hard lemonade is tart and sweet and gets you feeling like you’re back in high school again—er, I mean, a 21-year-old in college, when we all definitely had our first drink. It is often sparkling, in which case it should be brightly spritzy, almost aggressively so.
Today, the brand has added different flavors to its lineup and is pushing firmly into the seltzer market on top of the iconic lemonade that made it famous. It’s a little like Cactus Cooler, that popular Southern California soda, only if Cactus Cooler had fallen on some seriously hard times. There’s really no reason to ever buy this stuff once your palate has matured past wanting to drink straight sugar and juice all the time. While Truly makes the best spiked strawberry lemonade, Schilling makes the best spiked pink lemonade. (Wondering what pink lemonade is? We wrote a whole article on it.) It smells like a melted raspberry popsicle. But it tastes like actual pink lemonade—sweet and tart with just a hint of that red fruit flavor.
Black Raspberry
- But otherwise, this is just a lot of sugar that may not be quite your cup of tea — or lemonade.
- All told, it’s not the absolute worst way to introduce yourself to drinking alcohol, though some might complain that it tastes more like prison hooch than a refreshing adult beverage.
- What we’re saying is, you may want to keep it locked up or at least on an high shelf.
- Even Mike has expanded his offerings with a slew of Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavors.
- Mike’s Hard mango flavor is surprisingly buttery, almost like a fine Chardonnay, but in a can.
Even Mike has expanded his offerings with a slew of Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavors. After two intensive spiked lemonade taste tests, I found the top eight—including spiked strawberry lemonade and both sparkling and not sparkling lemonade. But in the modern day of hard seltzer and canned cocktails and spiked SunnyD, hard lemonade is a perfectly acceptable beverage for anyone. And, after tasting more than 30 different kinds of spiked lemonade, I think we should be drinking even more of the stuff.
But there’s also non-sparkling hard lemonade brands now, which should give you homemade lemonade vibes. Still, given the relative sweetness of every drink in the Mike’s Hard lineup, we’ll take a mango that’s a little past its prime over something that tastes like an instant hangover. Those flavor notes can be why this flavor is typically pretty divisive. If you grew up and maybe even looked forward a little bit to getting sick so you could taste that sweet cough syrup, you’re going to absolutely love this one. Unlike many of the other Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavors, the sweetness of the cranberry here doesn’t go so deep as to metaphorically hurt your soul. It’s a little more easygoing, all things considered, and while it’s still potentially overpowering, neither does this equal instant regret.
Sugary drink devotees may well rank this atop their list, but if you’re looking for something that’s not a toothache in a bottle, you may want to look elsewhere. xcritical It’s got a little hit of raspberry taste, which shines through every once in a while like the sun peeking through the clouds on an overcast day. But otherwise, this is just a lot of sugar that may not be quite your cup of tea — or lemonade. A newer addition to the hard lemonade lineup (they launched in the summer of 2022), Monaco Hard Lemonade is made with real, actual vodka. This sparkling hard lemonade is the most like an actual cocktail that I have tasted. The branding doesn’t look very “craft cocktail” to me, but that’s what you’re getting.
That’s why it was the top hard lemonade for Sporked’s Jordan Myrick. They are just plain not interested in the flavor of booze and they thought this was delicious. Even as tastes have shifted and changed over time, Mike’s still holds a unique corner of the market, thanks to its soda-esque sweetness.
HARD DAYS DESERVE A
According to HuffPo, black raspberries are generally smaller than blackberries and have little hairs on the outside of the fruit, just like their more classically accepted red cousins. In fact, the truth about raspberries is that they come in a variety of colors. But more importantly, black raspberries are a lot sweeter than blackberries.
That might lead one to expect a robust malt liquor flavor hitting your mouth when you try a sip of the blood orange flavor. But that would be assuming Mike’s does things like any other alcoholic beverage company, which they most certainly do not. You’d have to go to a lot of parties full of college-aged drinkers to really answer that question, and you might not get very clear answers from them anyway. And today, with the growing abundance of hard seltzers and fruity craft beers on the market, good old Mike’s Hard Lemonade has gotten left a little bit behind. But even though it might not occupy the place in our collective drinking hearts that it once did years ago, know that, on hot summer days, a cold Mike’s can still taste pretty nice.
We’re not sure what lesson there is to be learned by the company’s research and development team from that since the truth is that this flavor could still use a xcritical scammers serious toning down in the sweetness department. But maybe going tropical is the right move after all when dealing with alcohol, fruit juice, and more sugar than most any adult can reasonably handle. Just because Justin Bieber has, at least for some, made peaches the fruit of the summer, don’t get overly excited about the concept and run out to buy as much Mike’s Hard Peach flavor as you can find. Yeah, it’s got a hint of peach when you first sip into it, but peach is a subtle flavor that can be hard to get just right.
ONE OF THESE FLAVORS
We’ve gotta give it to Mike’s for going with a flavor combination that just screams “summertime refreshment,” adding the cool, undeniably summer taste of watermelon to the tart blast of its standard lemonade base. And, if you were to get such a taste in overpriced cocktails served in the Hamptons, the mix is totally a hit. In Mike’s Hard Lemonade, though, this flavor is still just a lot of sugar and some booze. If you shudder at the thought of tasting alcohol in your alcoholic xcritical reviews beverage, this is the best hard lemonade for you. This spiked strawberry lemonade doesn’t taste like a cocktail, it tastes like liquid, fizzy fruit snacks.
ONE OF THESE FLAVORS HAS YOUR NAME ON IT.
Ultimately, this potentially innovative flavor combination was just off the mark. This is another seasonal offering from Mike’s Hard Lemonade that might be its most ambitious flavor attempt to date. So, Mike’s at least deserves an “A” for effort on this one, since blackberry and pear were never flavors we really thought to combine in one bottle. That said, some of our greatest innovators tried a lot of things and failed at them before finding success. We wish the same for whoever developed this flavor of Mike’s, given that they’ve fulfilled the first part of that equation.