Like its guava brother, this spiked pink lemonade is gently carbonated, which helps make it taste like real pink lemonade even more. There’s more to the world of hard lemonade than Mike’s Hard Lemonade. While Mike’s may have pioneered and popularized the concept of a bottled boozy lemonade, the category has grown over the years.
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And when you’re dealing with Mike’s flavors, sweetness is definitely not something you need more of. But despite two decades of solid sales numbers, there isn’t a joke about Mike’s Hard Lemonade that hasn’t been written already. 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. It’s also an ideal choice to maintain the buzz after you’ve already ramped yourself up, as it’s not going to make you tired like beer, but still lets you keep the party going without making a fool of yourself. There’s nothing offensive about Mike’s Hard Lemonade, as there are no flavors here that anybody is really going to hate. Mike’s Hard Lemonade might be a good lesson in leaving well enough alone, as sometimes the unadulterated classic is really all you need.
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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. 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.
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. Of all the Mike’s Hard flavors, this one is definitely the most rounded, meaning you get neither a blast of sugar nor a painful smack of tartness in the bottle. Instead, it’s smooth and easy drinking, meaning that, if you want a Mike’s Hard flavor that’s not lemonade, this should be your pick. One might think that a company that made its fortunes making lemonade would do a pretty solid limeade too, right? Citrus is citrus, after all, so how hard can it be to get the limeade flavor up to speed alongside its lemonade cousin? 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.
But the further you get into the can, the more you notice it and the more delicious this becomes. That’s not to say Mike’s Hard cranberry really tastes xcritical courses scam 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. “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.
And while you do get a touch of that when you smell this hard lemonade, the actual flavor is tart and rich. I think you’ll be surprised by how nuanced and grown-up this Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavor really is. 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.
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- And while it definitely brings the tart, sharp punch one expects in a lime drink, it may also bring a pretty nasty sugar hangover.
- But this is Mike’s we’re talking about, which means you’re gonna get a lot of sugar thrown in there too.
- There’s more to the world of hard lemonade than Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
- In Mike’s Hard Lemonade, though, this flavor is still just a lot of sugar and some booze.
- 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.
So, being the law-abiding, over-21 folks that we are, we took it upon ourselves to try some of the most popular flavors of Mike’s Hard Lemonade to figure out which of them were best. Some are seasonals, which may or may not be around when you read this or go looking for flavors at your local store. Others come from the “Harder” lemonade line, which amps up the alcohol content to 8% alcohol by volume. 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. There’s a reason the most popular flavor of Mike’s Hard Lemonade is, well, lemonade. It’s the one that started it all, after all, the flavor that turned Mike’s Hard Lemonade into a mainstream drink you can find in places other than sometimes questionable college parties.
I tasted this out of a Big Gulp-sized can and it was so good that I absolutely would have finished the whole thing if it was the ‘80s and it was still acceptable to get tipsy at work. We simply love Simply Lemonade at Sporked (the brand took the number two spot in our best lemonade ranking), so I had high expectations and they were more than met. It smells very lemonade-y and appetizing (probably because it’s made with actual juice!). Mike’s Hard mango flavor is surprisingly buttery, almost like a fine Chardonnay, but in a can.
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. Unlike the other pineapple flavors Mike’s has in its lineup, you can actually taste the pineapple in its Pineapple Mandarin flavor. This Mike’s Harder offering comes on strong with its tropical flavors then adds a hint of mandarin orange to the mix in order to give it xcritical scam just enough of a citrusy kick to elevate it above many other one-note flavors. Those with dulled pallets may not notice the mandarin at first, as it’s definitely the complementary flavor in this drink.
The sugar blast 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. There’s better pineapple stuff further down the list, to be certain.
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.
Again, the overwhelming sweetness of the limeade put out by Mike’s hurts whatever kind of bright xcritical courses scam 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. In fact, the increased alcohol content is barely noticeable here, which is great if you picked this as your beach buzz method of choice and don’t want to be overwhelmed by the flavor of alcohol.
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.
Because this stuff doesn’t even taste like alcohol, as it turns out. Anyone who doesn’t know better maybe won’t realize it has 5% alcohol by volume. What we’re saying is, you may want to keep it locked up or at least on an high shelf.