Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Betty Booze is the confluence of two rising tides: canned cocktails and celebrity-helmed alcohol branding.
The slim-fit cans are an extension of Blake Lively’s Betty Buzz premium mixers, a logical jump from craft bottles of ginger beer to the mixed drinks in which they’re destined to wind up. The actress joins a crowded lineage of famous folks who’d like to get you drunk — a banner brought to the spotlight by Dan Aykroyd and Sammy Hagar a couple decades back and since carried by George Clooney, The Rock, Peyton Manning and, notably, Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds.
Instead of branding a specific spirit, Lively’s opted to build her own cocktail line aimed at going above and beyond the 12-ounce hype machine of hard seltzers. Betty Booze is filled with the ingredients you’d find at an expensive speakeasy-inspired venue, ready to be made by a bartender with entirely too complex facial hair and arm garters. Thus, being able to drink them at home is already a point in their favor. Will they live up to their craft-inspired billing?
Sparkling tequila with lime shiso: A-
I’m assuming that’s what’s giving this glass a specific crispness beyond the agave and citrus. It’s sparkly and smells a little spicy — maybe bordering on a ginger type flavor. That comes out a little bit on the first sip, but the first thing you notice is a nearly creamy carbonation that reminds me of the best parts of Topo Chico’s canned cocktails. These bubbles carry a current of balanced flavor, ranging from sweet to sour to floral all in a short window.
I am very much into it. The herbal shiso is apparent and a nice twist on what could have been a very cliche cocktail. instead, I can safely say I haven’t had a canned drink like this before — it actually tastes like an artisanal cocktail you’d spend $17 on at a hotel bar because there weren’t a ton of other options and they don’t put the prices on the menu.
That’s how they get you.
Sparkling tequila with oak smoked lemonade: B+
Like the first can, it’s casting off fancy vibes. But it’s also a thirst quencher, as the sweet and sour weave together and leave with a dry finish. It is, again, a very unique entry into a crowded canned cocktail market. There’s nothing else that tastes like it coming from White Claw or High Noon or any of the RTD brands out there.
A look at the can suggests orange juice is right behind lemon juice on the ingredient list, which helps explain some of that creaminess and complexity. At the same time it shines in its simplicity compared to a much more involved RTD like the high effort, low payoff Spirited Hive cocktails (that’s a personal preference — it’s clear they put a ton of work into their drinks but for me they’re overstuffed). Betty Booze is more than you’d expect from “tequila and lemonade” but it never feels like too much.
Sparkling bourbon with apple ginger sour cherry: B
But again, there’s an impressive depth of flavor even if it’d be nice to get more whiskey in each sip (there’s probably a seven percent ABV version of these cans that hits that target perfectly). What begins as a crisp ginger beer fades away as a slight current of sour cherry slides in. The drink may have been better off without it, but it’s not necessarily bad. After all, the cocktail remains crisp and easy to drink even with that slight aftertaste misstep.
It’s the weakest of the bunch, but it’s still good enough to make my regular rotation. Man, I never expected Blake Lively’s canned cocktails to whip the everloving [expletive] out of Sammy Hagar’s, yet here we are.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Betty Booze over a cold can of Hamm’s?
The lime and lemonade cocktails for sure, which is surprising since I don’t normally go for tequila. The bourbon is a bit more of an acquired taste, but I’d dabble. These are good!
