Bar Talk: Canned cocktails

There is no shortage of ready-to-drink (RTD) canned cocktails on the shelves of liquor stores these days.

It’s a trend in the spirit industry that continues to grow, evolving from a simple hard seltzer to a mixed drink made with top-shelf ingredients that tastes as if your favorite bartender just made it fresh.

While the majority of RTD options on the shelves used to be vodka-based cocktails, today you can find almost any spirit you prefer in a canned cocktail.

For me, that means gin. For you, the reader, that means this week’s Bar Talk column is about two new gin-based RTD options that recently hit the market.

The first of the two is not necessarily a new product but a new permanent flavor: the peach Finnish Long Drink.

The Finnish Long Drink RTD was first launched in the US in 2018, but the actual mixed drink is a staple in Finland, having been enjoyed since 1952 and easily found on tap across the country.

The traditional beverage is a mixture of gin and grapefruit soda. In its current lineup of expressions, the Finnish Long Drink has Original, Zero (think like a Coke Zero: same taste as the original but no carbs or sugar), Cranberry (cranberry instead of grapefruit), Strong (8.5% abv to the Original’s 5.5%), and now Peach.

The Peach expression started as a limited-edition Long Drink flavor. However, it was so popular that fans of the brand clamored to have it become a part of the permanent lineup, and the company listened, making Peach the first new flavor in over four years and a legion of happy and even more loyal fans.

Upon the first crack of the can, you can smell the peach, which I’ll admit had me nervous that the flavor was going to lean toward the artificial, gummy, peach ring, but luckily, that was not the case.

The drink is free of any artificial sweetness and flavorful but not overpoweringly fruity. It’s fizzy and refreshing, with notes of the juniper from the gin lingering after the sip is finished.

Honestly, it’s delicious. And while it is certainly a gin-based cocktail, you don’t have to be a gin fan to like it. I can see why fans were adamant about it becoming a permanent Finnish Long Drink offering, and I applaud the company for listening.

The second gin RTD I’m writing about is a new product but not a new concept. It’s a heavy dose of nostalgia in a can if you grew up listening to ’90s rap or are a Snoop Dogg or Dr. Dre fan.

It’s Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop.

Thirty years after the Grammy-nominated hit song was released, Dre and Snoop had their mind on their money and their money on their mind when they came up with this serious no-brainer of an RTD canned cocktail. But they also had their mind set on making a drinkable product, where shortcuts could have been taken to just capitalize on the name and novelty rather than a product people would want to repeat consume.

Released in February, with a bigger rollout nationwide this spring, Gin & Juice comes in four flavors: the classic Citrus, and then the more unique flavors of Passionfruit, Melon, and Apricot.

Not only is the name iconic, but the packaging is also top-notch. Each flavor features a different colored vintage car, which I assume is Snoop’s Skylark, and a Parental Advisory sticker on the front.

Branding aside, the taste of the Gin & Juice, while not mind-blowing, is an easy-drinking RTD that those looking for a fun, lower-ABV drink would enjoy.

For this review, I’m sticking with the Melon flavor, which if I had to pin down which melon this is about, I would say watermelon.

It truly tastes like someone just juiced a watermelon (meaning not artificial) and added gin to it — although strangely, for a gin and juice, it is devoid of color.

It’s not too sweet, and although not listed on the ingredients, I get a faint hint of lime.

Compared with the Finnish Long Drink, I can tell that the gin used is not as high quality in the Gin & Juice.

While not overpoweringly flavorful, it’s an RTD that gets better the more you drink it, which is a real positive as some canned cocktails don’t hold up the further into the can you get.

If you’re looking to “try before you buy” with this one, Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop will be doing a large “activation” at the University of Colorado’s Prime Weekend Football Game on April 27 if you’re looking to kick off your offseason “Sippin on gin and juice, laid back”