Brian Nagele
The difference between a high-quality spirit and a poor-quality spirit is as obvious to the palate as it is to how we feel the morning after. The same can be said about cocktails. We don’t give bartenders enough credit.
Mixing drinks is a culinary art form that depends on high-quality ingredients, technique, and correct proportions. Fancy cocktails are quite expensive, and rightfully so.
Many of us spend exorbitant amounts of money each week to enjoy a cocktail hour or a few cocktails with dinner.
Instead of chasing the best happy hours, you can save money on high-quality cocktails without trying to mix them yourself. Spirit brands and passionate bartenders have come out with canned cocktails with perfectly proportioned mixtures of alcohol and mixers.
You can host your own happy hour, cookout, or dinner party with delicious alcoholic drinks conveniently proportioned in recyclable cans.
I have compiled a list of the best-canned cocktails below with a diversity of spirits and flavors.
Miami Cocktail Company Spritzers
Miami Cocktail Company has been featured in Goop, Forbes, Real Simple, Pure Won, and more for its delicious variety of canned cocktails made with organic ingredients and fine-tuned recipes.
Originating in Miami’s artsy Wynwood neighborhood, Miami Cocktail Company utilizes its creative neighborhood as a muse with its newest line of Spritzers.
The Spritzers are a selection of low-calorie versions of classic cocktails.
The Spritzer line consists of 110-calorie versions of Bellini, Margarita, Mimosa, Sangria, and Paloma. Every cocktail combines an organic wine with clean, organic fruit juices.
I served the Bellini Spritz containing rosé wine, mango, and peach juice for weekend brunch.
Two Chicks Cocktails Sparkling Paloma
As the name suggests, Two Chicks Cocktails is proudly women-owned and operated.
They have a tasteful line of sparkling cocktails that garnered USA Today’s 10 Best Awards for canned cocktails. Their beautifully designed cans look as elegant as they taste.
Two Chicks Sparling Paloma contains tequila Blanco, pink grapefruit juice, and sparkling water. Each 12-oz can have 5% alcohol by volume.
The Paloma has received high scores from the Beverage Testing Institute and Proof Awards, not to mention a silver medal from Bartender Spirits Awards.
I love the tangy sweetness of the fresh grapefruit juice. It’s also nice to know that these cocktails have as much alcohol as a can of beer, so I can enjoy a few without getting too drunk.
Cutwater Spirits
Founded by master brewer and distiller Yuseff Cherney, Cutwaters Spirits is a small-batch distillery out of San Diego, California that makes high-quality spirits, cocktail mixers, alcoholic popsicles, and canned cocktails.
Cherney has decades of experience distilling alcohol and perfecting cocktail recipes that enhance the flavor of his spirits.
Cutwater Spirits make canned cocktails using every small-batch spirit distilled on-site including rum, tequila, vodka, whiskey, and gin.
Each spirit has a selection of classic canned cocktails associated with it. For instance, rum canned cocktails consist of mojito, mai tai, pina colada, rum punch, and long island iced tea.
I loved the Riki Rum Mai Tai, with Cutwater Barrel Aged Rum, Bali Hai Tiki Gold Rum, pineapple, coconut, and citrus juice.
It has a whopping 12.5% abv, so I was ready to dance halfway through drinking it!
Long Drink
A gold medal winner from Proof Awards, American Distilling Institute, NY International Spirits Competition, and Tastings.com, Long Drink is an iconic Finnish drink brought to America in cans.
Long Drink originated during the 1950s Olympics which Finland hosted. It was created to supply international travelers, spectators, and athletes with celebratory cocktails.
It consists of gin, club soda, and citric fruit juice. Long Drink canned cocktails come in Traditional, Calorie-Free, Cranberry, and Long Drink Strong.
The Traditional Long Drink is a simple blend of citrus-flavored soda with gin. All but the Long Drink Strong have a 5.5% abv.
If you like a strong drink, I recommend the Long Drink Strong, which has a much higher proportion of gin and a 12.5% abv.
Loverboy White Tea Peach
Loverboy is a canned cocktail company dedicated to creating delicious low-calorie cocktails using all-natural ingredients with no added sugar.
Loverboy founders claim that sugary alcohol drinks are the culprit for terrible hangovers.
They offer a vast line of alcoholic tea cocktails that use organic tea leaves, a splash of natural fruit juice, and a high-quality spirit.
The Loverboy White Tea Peach uses organically brewed white tea, alcohol from fermentation, sweet peach juice, alcohol, lavender, lemon, and monk fruit to add sweetness.
The flavorful sweet tea taste has a nicely fermented funk from the alcohol, but it has only 90 calories. I like popping one open on a hot summer’s day.
Kahlua Espresso Style Martini
Kahlua is one of the oldest and most well-known spirits in the world, originating in Mexico in the 1930s.
Kahlua is a coffee liqueur that combines the highest quality Arabica coffee with rum.
Its sweet coffee flavor is delicious on its own but has since become the key ingredient in countless cocktails.
Kahlua is a luxurious additive for fancy cocktails in bars worldwide, so the company decided to create its own line of Kahlua canned cocktails.
The Kahlua Espresso Style martini has Kahlua, vodka, and their own nitro-cold brewed coffee topped off with nitro foam.
It’s as decadent and luxurious as Kahlua cocktails come. I feel like I’m having dessert and coffee in one perfect package when I drink one of these canned cocktails.
Onda Tequila Seltzer
Meaning “wave” in Spanish, Onda Tequila Seltzer’s festive and summery canned cocktails were inspired by surfer and beach culture.
They source their tequila from a female-owned tequila distillery in Jalisco, Mexico, combining high-quality spirit with real fruit juice and soda.
There’s no better pairing in the cocktail world than tequila and lime, which is why one of their signature canned cocktails is the Tequila Seltzer, with tequila, lime juice concentrate, natural flavor, and carbonated water.
In my opinion, the Onda Tequila Seltzer canned cocktail is the perfect poolside staple, that is, if you aren’t near the beach.
BACARDĺ Bahama Mama
If you’re a rum fan, Bacardi is no stranger to you.
Bacardi is the most pervasively renowned rum distillery in the Western Hemisphere, with countless varieties of rum along with tropical liqueur-flavored rums, pre-mixed drinks, and tropical mixers.
The Bacardi Bahama Mama is their award-winning pre-mixed cocktail that originally came in large party-sized bottles.
Now, you can get it in single-serving cans. The Bahama Mama contains Bacardi Superior Rum, a blend of orange, red berries, and pineapple juice concentrates.
It’ll put you in a Caribbean state of mind. I like to pair it with an appetizer of plantain chips and spicy salsa.
F!VE DRINKS CO Variety Pack
Owned and operated by a group of friends and alcohol aficionados, FiVE Drinks Co is a canned cocktail company whose premise is to create quality cocktails with pure, simple ingredients.
Their line of canned cocktails has six classic cocktails in silver cans with the cocktail name and its ingredients printed in large block letters on the front.
They sell a variety pack with a whopping 48 cans, with seven cans of each of the six cocktails:
- Margarita
- Moscow Mule
- Paloma
- Mojito
- Gin and Tonic
- Watermelon Vodka Soda
Each can consist of a few ingredients, and they’re all perfect in their simplicity. They also have very high alcohol contents.
My favorite was their Moscow Mule, with vodka, lime juice, ginger beer, tamarind, and coconut water.
Usual Wines Yuzu Spritz
Usual Wines is a single-serving bottled wine company that uses sources high-quality wines from California vineyards and bottles them in tasteful glass, mini-wine bottles.
They offer countless varieties of wine for every taste and have recently come out with a wine spritz canned cocktail line that combines a selection of their finest bubbly wines with real fruit juice.
In the case of the Yuzu Spritz, Usual Wines delivers a delightful pairing of Brut with Yuzu juice.
Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit with a sweet and tangy flavor that I describe as a cross between a lemon and a grapefruit.
Crafthouse Cocktails Moscow Mule
Crafthouse Cocktails is the manifestation of Matt Lindner and Charles Joly’s decades of experience as mixologists and passion for quality cocktails.
Their selection of high-quality canned, boxed, and bottled cocktails have garnered acclaim from Forbes, Bevvy, LA Times, Vogue, Travel and Leisure, and many more.
Their Moscow Mule is a double Gold Award winner from the World Spirit Design Competition.
They use house-made ginger beer, premium quality vodka, and lime juice.
I think the homemade ginger beer and high-quality vodka puts Crafthouse’s version a cut above the rest.
