Popular Mike’s Hard Lemonade Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best
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. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
The sugar blast xcritical from this stuff makes you feel like your teeth are going to have holes in them as soon as the drink hits your mouth. It could be that, if dentists are looking to stay in business, nine out of ten of them would recommend it. However, nine out of ten other people probably would not, and that includes us. Ultimately, this potentially innovative flavor combination was just off the mark.
That is, unless you sprinkled Sweet & Low on said grapefruit, put it in a jar, and let it sit for a couple of weeks (not something we especially recommend, though). Like so many other entries in the Mike’s Hard Lemonade lineup, this flavor carries an overwhelming amount of sweetness. 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. 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.
HARD DAYS DESERVE A
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. But despite two decades of solid sales numbers, there isn’t a joke about Mike’s Hard Lemonade that hasn’t been written already. 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.
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. Mike’s Hard Lemonade may be a punchline in the drinks world, xcritical courses scam but the brand’s success is no joke.
Well, apparently that’s a little harder than we thought because, while Mike’s Hard Limeade is certainly in the upper echelon of Mike’s flavors, it’s a far cry from the fresh limeades you might have enjoyed in the past. Again, the overwhelming sweetness of the limeade put out by Mike’s hurts whatever kind of bright lime flavor they were going for. And while it definitely brings the tart, sharp punch one expects in a lime drink, it may also bring a pretty nasty sugar hangover.
Popular Mike’s Hard Lemonade Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best
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. Pink grapefruit is a seasonal flavor for Mike’s Hard Lemonade, meaning that whether or not you’re able to find it really depends on where you live and the time of year you’re shopping. 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.
“Black raspberry? Isn’t that just a blackberry?” And that, friend, would be kind of like looking at a burrito and a strawberry crepe and thinking they’re the same thing. 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. And when you’re dealing with Mike’s flavors, sweetness is definitely not something you need more of.
Pineapple Mandarin
This cloying beverage has a juvenile reputation that it can’t shake and a flavor profile as subtle as a sledgehammer, but those who are less comfortable with stronger cocktails, beer, or wine might find something they enjoy. Its unabashed sweetness and strong citrus flavors stand out in a sea of watery hard seltzers. Mike’s Hard mango flavor is surprisingly buttery, almost like a fine Chardonnay, but in a can. Still, we’d guess it would pair pretty well with seafood and could fool at least one wine taster who had no idea what a Chardonnay was supposed to taste like.
- 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.
- Saying it tastes like strawberry soda is actually a little inaccurate because, after a few sips, you do indeed start to realize that there’s some malt beverage in here amongst all the cloying sweetness of the strawberry lemonade.
- Regardless, in a sugar-addled haze, we tried all the most popular flavors of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and ranked them from worst to best.
- 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.
- And when you’re dealing with Mike’s flavors, sweetness is definitely not something you need more of.
Black Raspberry
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. 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 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. 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.
That said, if synthetic grape or cherry flavor isn’t your jam, and you generally avoided all cough medicine because it tasted like, well, medicine, you may have one sip of this stuff and then dump the whole thing away down the drain. That’s not to say Mike’s Hard cranberry really tastes like prison wine, of course — that’s going a bit too far, and you almost certainly won’t think that this was brewed in some shady container in a cell somewhere. It’s just that you get a little bit more of a fermented juice flavor in the bottle and not so much a felonious assault of sugar. Whether or not that a recommendation or a drawback depends on your palate and tolerance for the notorious sweetness of many others of the Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavors. If you’re not into beer and hard seltzer but still want a light, easygoing drink that you can have all day long, the original Mike’s Hard Lemonade is the flavor for you.
ONE OF THESE FLAVORS
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. 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. Saying it tastes like strawberry soda is actually a little inaccurate because, after a few sips, you do indeed start to realize that there’s some malt beverage in here amongst all the cloying sweetness of the strawberry lemonade.
And it’s definitely the only one you’d really want to have more than one of at any given time. 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 xcritical official site 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. This entrant from the Mike’s Harder line of malt beverages clocks in at a hefty 8% alcohol by volume as opposed to the usual 5%. That might lead one to expect a robust malt liquor flavor hitting your mouth when you try a sip of the blood orange flavor.
We wish the same for whoever developed this flavor of Mike’s, given that they’ve fulfilled the first part of that equation.
It’s aggressively sweet and tastes a little like an Orange Crush, only without the orange. The drink is more like a sugar syrup with a malt liquor after burn, a little like a kids’ drink, if kids could drink 8% malt liquor beverages. Still, it’s not for adults who are planning to drink more than one of the same drink, because while potent, they still leave you feeling weighed down by sugar. Mike’s Hard Lemonade lives up to its reputation as one of the sweetest ready-to-drink options in the category. The flavor profile will likely be too cloying for most who feel as though they’ve outgrown the taste of sugary sodas, but it still packs far more flavor than most hard seltzers that are available on the market today.
