beverage of the week – Syndication Server

Cocktail of the Week: Sunshine Punch is the dark shadow of a creamsicle

Sunshine Punch looks great, but it’s stuck halfway between a lot of what you need in a good cocktail.

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.

Just because canned cocktails are a full blown thing doesn’t mean we should forget their big brother; the bottled cocktail.

Pre-bottled cocktails are a genre that’s envolved from the early days of Chi-Chi’s margarita mix. Those old standbys persist — a mai tai in a 1.75-liter bottle meant to assist the laziest home bartender — but they’ve been supplemented by new spirits that tread a trail blazed by Southern Comfort and Bailey’s Irish Creme.

Sunshine Punch falls into the latter category, a Florida variant of Rumchata-type creamy liqueurs. Those can be great as easy, old-man shots or as minor ingredients in enterprising cocktails. But Sunshine Punch wants more; it wants to stand on its own as a proper drink, sipped over ice preferably near a body of water on a warm day.

The bottle is unique. The pebbled, opaque bottle is an embossed orange peel, leaving no doubt what you’re getting into. And the “sky above, sand below” tagline feels like it’s been lifted straight from a Kenny Chesney tailgate. There’s no doubt it stands out on the liquor store shelf.

How about when it’s poured into a rocks glass?

Sunshine Punch: C+

There’s not much of a smell to it, and it pours a little creamier than orange. It looks like a light egg nog or a tinted Rumchata than the bright citrus rind, at least more than the bottle would suggest.

While the ingredients promise rum, vodka and liqueur, you get a little more vodka-OJ up front than you’d expect. It’s creamier than a screwdriver or a fuzzy navel, but it’s still a little stronger than you’d think an 18 percent ABV drink would hit you. Or at least, something in a bright orange bottle labeled “punch” would hit you, but I guess that can be a verb and a noun so maybe I’m the idiot here.

It’s good enough, but it’s halfway to a lot of things. Not quite creamy enough. Not quite orange. A little boozy but not powerful enough to flip any switches. It’s a nice idea, but the bottle is a lot more fully formed than the drink itself, which is unimpressive but totally fine.

Sunshine Punch is easier than a cocktail you’d make yourself and has none of the satisfaction involved. But it’s low effort and a nice halfway step between a hard seltzer and hard liquor. There’s an audience for that, even if it’s not me.

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 Sunshine Punch over a cold can of Hamm’s?

No. It’s nice as a change of pace drink, but one is enough for me.

Weed-adjacent cocktail of the week: MXXN’s cannabis infused spirits are pleasant but low key

“M-X-X-N, that spells moon,” I laugh to myself as I sip a gin and tonic that smells like what I assume LeBron James mid-2000s entourage did.

I’m a booze guy, not a weed guy. Marijuana, in my limited but assuredly legal experience, doesn’t do much for me. Joints, vape pens, edibles all kinda fall flat against my expectation of being high as a guy and, mercifully, getting the kind of sleep I once did as a teenager.

But I’m open to trying new things. And since cannabis-infused drinks are legal here in Wisconsin (but neither medicinal or recreational weed are, because this is a state that enjoys hemorrhaging money over the border) that meant giving MXXN a try.

MXXN, pronounced “moon” I’m assured, is riding the wave of relaxed marijuana laws and the increasing popularity of the once taboo substance. It’s also taking direct aim at traditional drinkers, making cannabis-infused bottles to mimic tried and true spirits like bourbon, tequila and gin. At roughly $80 per fifth, it’s priced like an upper class booze.

Can it deliver on that promise? I’m not expecting a ton in terms of taste, but I am diving in on the one tenet I badly want from my cannabis. I want this thing to relax me and, ultimately, usher me off to eight proper hours of sleep.

This is a big deal. I suck at sleeping. Fix me, MXXN. Or at least help me buy in to the idea a little herbal supplement can help.

Whisky of the Week: Glenglassaugh is the unkillable scotch and its revival is well earned

Glenglassaugh is back in business with a major marketing push. Are their malts worth it?

Glenglassaugh has a classic scotch story — one that nearly ended multiple times. It was one of Scotland’s many coastal distilleries, a whisky mill in a classic stone building turning water into something better. The northeastern fishing town, a breezy mix of salt and sand, saw its brewer shutter its doors twice since its 1875 founding. Once in 1908 and once as it faced the hardships of the whisky crash of the 1980s.

But the stills roared back to life in 2008. Now, a little more than 15 years later, Glenglassaugh has pushed its way back onto the marketplace with a proper dram. 2023 marked an aggressive marking strategy revolving around a new 12-year whisky to complement the distillery’s other standbys. Its place as a coastal Highland suggests it could hit the sweet spot between the inland’s smoother, full-bodied malts and Islay’s salty, smoky, brassy offerings.

I love both those styles. Let’s see how Glenglassaugh holds up.

How to build the perfect beer lineup for your 2024 Super Bowl party

Start with a big, popular lager. Then branch out from there — into IPAs and, yep, hard seltzers and canned cocktails.

Creating a proper Super Bowl viewing party isn’t just a matter of getting a properly enormous television to broadcast Tony Romo’s nonsensical rants in high definition. It’s also about creating a nurturing environment from which to absorb Romo’s garbage and the possibility of a big game blowout.

And, in one of the few cases it’s not only tolerated but expected on a Sunday evening, that involves beer.

Finding the right beers can be a daunting task, especially if you live in a place where the liquor lineups take up roughly the same square footage of a standard grocery store. And since I happen to live in one of these places, I’m gonna toss in my Wisconsin-specific recommendations alongside the brews you can find just about anywhere in the U.S.

Here’s where you should start — and where you should finish — to create a crowd-pleasing Super Bowl 58 beer lineup.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 tag=146952]

Beverage of the week: Roar Organic is sublime, hangover-busting hydration

Packed with vitamins, coconut water and a little sugar, Roar Organic is a heavyweight when it comes to fighting hangovers.

Roar Organic’s flavored waters were pitched to me as a soothing balm for Dry January; a meticulously crafted flavored water lineup capable of serving as a mocktail in a pinch. And that’s true.

But it glosses over the true beauty of Roar. These vitamin-packed bottled waters and flavor packets put in heavyweight work when it comes to fighting hangovers whether you’re drinking them the night of or the morning after.

As someone who was in college, sigh, 20 years ago, I’ve come to the shared, sad conclusion my body can no longer shrug off small amounts of poison consumed over the weekend like it used to. Hangovers clock in after three beers instead of six. Early mornings of making breakfast and watching Bluey feel roughly 10 times worse than they should.

Roar Organic was a massive help in this category. Spacing out a night of drinking with any amount of water will make a difference, but one bottle of Roar seemed to make the following day significantly more pleasant. It wasn’t a panacea, but it really, truly did seem to help.

Now let’s talk about how it tastes.

Hard seltzer of the Week: Vizzy’s mimosa lineup is a solid brunch buzz in lighter form

A solid lineup of orange juice + champagne inspired seltzers hits the spot despite its light calorie load.

There’s a natural progression from brunch drinks to hard seltzers. Fizzy, fruity and boozy are the through-lines.

Thus, it was only a matter of time before Vizzy grabbed the orange juice-champagne buddy cop feature capable of making $16 eggs benedict dishes palatable and enlisted it in its own seltzer army. The venerable brand, last seen in this column rolling out a just-OK creamsicle flavor, has jumped into the fray with more than just orange flavors to offer.

We’ve got a solid lineup of classic seltzer flavors with which to pair that mimosa base, from pineapple to pomegranate. The question now is whether they’re any good — and, at 100 calories and five percent ABV, a worthy replacement for a more-filling, mixed-at-your-table mimosa.

Beer of the Week: Firestone Walker’s subscription box isn’t cheap, but hoooo buddy it’s worth it

If you like bold, heavy beers, that is.

Firestone Walker’s Brewmasters Collective isn’t cheap. For a shade under $400, you get an exclusive membership in a tight knit club, discounts on purchases online and at the brewery, access to a rare beer library and — and most importantly for my purposes, a quarterly beer shipment straight to your home.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m not a Brewmasters Collective member. But the brewery occasionally surprises me with deliveries out of nowhere because I am living inside some kind of glorious coma dream as my family worries around me, furious I left no will. So around last November, this showed up at my door (after I signed for it and proved I am, in fact, a grown up).

At the risk of turning into a character from an insurance commercial, it’s a really nice box! I kept it! I’m gonna put stuff in it!

Here’s what was inside:

Five unique, boozy beers (well, four and a barleywine), a couple of boxes of curated cookies and a spiffy brochure explaining the contents and what other perks come with membership. There’s no doubt a lot of thought has gone into this subscription crate. And since it’s Firestone Walker, it’s a near certainty these beers are going to be good.

Let’s see if they’re $99.25 good.

Canned Cocktail of the Week: Melograno tastes as good as it looks

Melograno’s got the prettiest can designs on the shelf. The cocktails themselves live up to that standard.

Seltzers aren’t the only things cutting into beer’s market share. Over time, the quality of premade cocktails has risen dramatically to bring another slim-fit can to shelves and chip away at light beer’s popularity.

Melograno isn’t a traditional cocktail thanks to its agave wine base, but it’s elbowing its way into that demographic with upscale offerings like Pomegranate Cosmopolitan and Orange Blossom Martini. The pitch is simple; these aren’t your typical High Noon vodka seltzers or your VMC tequila drinks. They’re low-calorie cocktails with a moderate ABV (five percent) aimed toward a crowd with a more discerning eye.

I mean, that’s pretty obvious from the labels themselves. These cans are gorgeous. They come in a sea of rich, glossy patterns like the wallpaper in the great room of a house you can’t afford. But I’m wary of a “blue agave wine specialty.” These typically come up short despite the promise of big flavor on limited calories.

Can they possibly be as good as they look?

Beverage of the week: Canelo Alvarez’s VMC canned cocktails, sigh, pack a wicked punch

The boxer’s signature cocktails are perfectly balanced and eminently drinkable. Mostly.

Once again, we’re diving into the ever-expanding chasm of celebrity-branded booze. A boutique kingdom once ruled by the likes of Sammy Hagar and Dan Aykroyd has seen an influx of invaders fight over an expanding territory and the hearts and minds of drinkers across the world.

In this column alone we’ve hit branded offerings from Guy Fieri, Kendall Jenner, Blake Lively and many others. Today, since this is a sports site after all, we’re headed to the ring to see what Saul “Canelo” Alvarez has in store. His VMC line of drinks — short for Viva Mexico Cabrones, which I *think* I can write here without getting dinged by Gannett’s standards and practices — taps into his Mexican roots with local tequilas and classic recipes.

But it’s a crowded landscape when it comes to 12 ounces of carbonated cocktails to-go. Does a world class boxer have what it takes to stand out?

Bourbon of the Week: Kentucky Owl is great. Is it $300 per bottle great?

Batch No. 12 works overtime to justify its staggering price. Does it get the job done?

I underestimated Kentucky Owl.

I didn’t realize the bourbon cult behind this beautiful, old school Bluegrass State bottle. It arrived, fairly inconspicuous, alongside a bottle of hibiscus liqueur. It was offered with the same level of PR casualness of Terry Bradshaw’s whiskey, a decent-enough bourbon aged two years and not ideal on its own. It languished in my liquor cabinet a couple months before I pulled it out.

What I got was the opposite of a cheap mixer. Kentucky Owl cracked my ass right out of the bottle with rich flavor and a spirit that had clearly been aged and blended with care. I’d figured the “Batch No. 12” was a gimmick on the label to sucker anyone taking a quick glance into thinking it’d sat in oak 12 years waiting for its turn. It hasn’t, but it has the smoothness and strength capable of convincing you otherwise.

Plus, gimmick bottles don’t typically run you $300 to $400 MSRP at the liquor store (you can get it for a lot less at the right places. Like Costco, impressively).

After going in blind I dropped the backup strategy of seeing how it would serve as a mixer. This would be perfectly fine as a very expensive whiskey and Coke and also an immensely stupid one. It’s clear this bourbon has everything it needs to stand up on its own.

But is it worth the cost?