Canned Cocktails Are Better than Ever: 7 You Need in Your Cooler

These brands are crushing the competition with their natural ingredients, premium spirits, and mixology magic.

Warm weather and sunny days are not the only thing heating up the landscape. Canned cocktails are flying off the shelves, virtual and otherwise, as more consumers look for their favorite mixed drinks in a portable, delivery-friendly, ultimately recyclable vessel. Demand for the Ready-to-Drink (RTD) libations was growing pre-pandemic, 40% according to Nielsen in 2019, lockdown shifted that growth into high gear with a meteoric 90.4 percent growth in Nielsen-measured off-premise sales ending in June 2020, and it continues to grow. 

Part of this rise is no doubt due to the infusion of delicious, bartender-created cocktails honoring the ingredients and craft involved in the drinks you order at a bar that are outpacing their artificial-flavored brethren. These RTD brands are producing beverages that showcase local ingredients, creative mixology, and respect for the environment. They are summer cooler worthy.

Vervet

It is hard to not wax poetic about Vervet’s gorgeously packaged, delicious cocktails. Hope Ewing, bartender and co-creator of these tasty beverages, has hit the mark in the RTD arena. She gave me a little insight to my new favorite canned cocktail line,

“A little background: we started the company back in 2017, me coming from a cocktail bartending & drinks writing background, my co-founder Tuan Lee from a barfly/commercial photographer background. Tuan wanted to create something that celebrates the immigrant cultures like his that make LA such an amazing food & culture city, and I loved this idea and wanted to express it in cocktail form.

Over the next 2 years I developed cocktail recipes that used California citrus and herbs, teas, and spices sourced from local markets like Saigon cinnamon, Korean burdock, Oolong tea and cold pressed strawberry juice from Oxnard (the strawberry capital of the world!). We worked at a craft distillery to make all our own spirits, bitters, amari and mixers. Each recipe was written with the end product in mind—not as a canned version of a drink you might get at a cocktail bar, but something all its own.”

I loved every one of these cocktails. The Tiki Tea has a nice hit of allspice that the oolong tea mellows out, and yet amplifies at the same time. The Sundowner starts with a strong strawberry nose, but it is delicate on the tongue. It has just the right amount of fizz, is not overly sweet, just fresh and refreshing all at once. The Angelicano is what initially drew me to Vervet. It is kind of a spritz, king a Negroni, kind of neither—they call it their, “Cali-Italo spritz.” 

The Pale Mary is a savory, kind of foodie-in-a-clarified-tomato way, take on the Bloody Mary, and is Ewing’s favorite, “...because it's the most divisive (people either love it or hate it), and was the hardest nut to crack in terms of production. It took us a while, and a few different filtering hacks to figure out how to make tomato water on a large enough scale. During the R & D phase I was just using cheesecloth in my kitchen. Once we got it down, it was such a triumph. I like to use it instead of beer to make gluten-free micheladas, or ‘Pale Michis’.” 

4 12-ounce cans $22

Livewire

Aaron Polsky is a bartender who deeply understands drinks. He also is the founder of Livewire, a company that is “remastering cocktails.” But, when you pop open one of his cans, you know he is actually an artist. Each recipe is handcrafted by a bartender-collaborator with natural flavors and extracts, as well as the finest spirits, but never fresh juice because as Polsky says, “...juice is great when it’s fresh, not when it’s put in a can and shipped around the world, so please continue to support your local bars. They make delicious fresh juice cocktails.” 

His most popular has to be The Heartbreaker, a refreshing blend of vodka, oroblanco grapefruit, kumquat, jasmine, and ginger, with notes of honey. But, in my opinion, The Golden God reigns supreme. It is liquid nectar in the form of rye whiskey, American brandy, elderflower, apricot, and green tea—the whiskey is subtle mingling with the sweet apricot, and the elderflower adds just the right floral tone, while the brandy smooths everything out, making for a can I could not put down. 

Right now there are three Livewire cocktails, but more are coming. Collaborations with legendary bartenders Erin Hayes, Shannon Mustipher, and Chris Patino are already arranged. And, one of the unique bits about Livewire is Polsky’s commitment to artistry—each can is designed by an artist of the bartender’s choosing. Polsky’s Heartbreaker and Golden God were designed by tattoo artist Henry Lewis, “...because he had done a great piece on my arm and in getting to know him over that time, I knew that he and I saw eye-to-eye on rock ’n’ roll.”

 4-pack $19.99

Fishers Island Lemonade

Founded by Bronya Shillo in 2014, Fishers Island Lemonade first was sipped at Shillo’s family bar, the Pequot Inn, on Fishers Island, New York. Shillo, who mixed the lemonade behind the bar every Friday night,  took the family recipe and created the refreshing recipe you find in the can. The female-founded company is dedicated to natural ingredients. No high fructose corn syrup or malt is added to the recipe—it tastes like a fresh glass of lemonade with no artificial aftertaste found in some canned cocktails. It is crafted with premium distilled spirits, vodka and whiskey, that have been gluten-removed certified.

In addition to Shillo’s dedication to her mission, “...to create the best tasting, highest quality ready-to-drink canned cocktail in the United States,” the company partners with One Percent for the Planet, an organization where businesses can support environmental solutions through annual membership. The ready-to-drink cocktail has a delicious blend of sweet honey and zesty lemon just right for a day on the boat, or a backyard barbeque, fresh out of the can, no glass required.

4-pack $16.99

Drifter

The first thing you notice is the incredible artwork on the cans. Drifter Craft Cocktails boasts, “Each can is a stamp on your passport,” and they deliver with labels that will transport you to the country of the cocktail’s origin, spirits from small-batch distilleries around the world, and recipes created by some of the best bartenders across the United States. 

According to Pete Nevenglosky, CEO & Co-Founder, the cocktails will be available for pre-order by April 21, 2021. When asked about why a can as the vehicle, he said, “We felt the mission to share these amazing spirits from around the world would be greatly served through a canned cocktail.  It allows us to combine our incredible spirit partners (such as Katia Espirito Santo of Avuá and Eduard Orendain of Paladar/Arette) with brilliant bartenders around the world.  The story of these cans is really their story.”

Drifter has four offerings: Passionfruit Caipirinha, Moscow Mule, Nordic Gin & Tonic, and my favorite, the Spicy Margarita with its bite of chipotle heat and pineapple undertones. 

4-pack $15.99 

Plain Spoke 

A canned mojito that tastes better than some of the ones in restaurants seems like an impossibility, but Plain Spoke’s8-ounce can delivers fresh mint flavor, a little bit of sweetness, and smooth rum on the finish. Tom Dufek, a midwest bartender who has competed in a number of national competitions, founded Madison Cocktail Week, and the Madison chapter of The United States Bartenders Guild, launched Plain Spoke in 2018. 

The libations come in four varieties, the Mojito, the Moscow Mule, The Bourbon Smash, and the Brandy Old-Fashioned. They are crafted with 100% natural ingredients, premium spirits (locally Midwest-sourced in two), and no preservatives, in a portable vessel. When asked about cans, Dufek said, “...[they] are better for that on-the-go lifestyle we all love these days. Aluminum is lighter, easier to carry and allowed in lots of places you can't have glass. If we wanted to bring a high quality cocktail experience everywhere, cans were the only legitimate choice.” 

$12.99, 4-packs

Novo Fogo

Brazil’s national cocktail, the Caipirinha, now comes in a can, carbonated, and in three flavors - Lime, Passionfruit Lime, and Mango-Lime. Crafted in the 100% certified organic and zero-waste Cachaca Distillery, Novo Fogo honors the traditional way of distilling sugar cane—no chemicals, no machines, hand-pressed, distilled in copper pots using steam, then rested in stainless steel tanks for one year, and finally aged in repurposed American Oak barrels. All byproducts are recycled for minimal impact on the environment. 

The Passionfruit Caipirinha, one of their new flavors, offers a slight tickle on the nose and fresh tropical taste on the palate in a petite single serve can that is easily portable to your lounger by the pool with no danger of broken glass or complicated recipes.

$19.99 per 4-pack 

Empirical

Empirical photo credit Dashti Jahfar

What’s inside these cans feels like a combination of mad scientist touched with mother nature. They are really undefinable—Is it a wine? Is it a cider? Is it a spirit?—it is unclear. What is clear is that the minds behind these concoctions, Lars Williams and Mark Emil Hermansen, are obsessed with flavor. The cans are crafted from a base of Belgian Saison Yeast for fermentation, and then flavored with black currants, young pine cones, cherry juice, toasted birch, and all manner of earthy ingredients. 

The Copenhagen-based company stays true to their commitment to flavor with custom-built machinery, hybrid fermentation techniques, augmented low-temperature distillation, and globally-sourced ingredients. Can 2 put me squarely in a memory of camping with my dad when I was young, surrounded by pine trees, getting ready to toast some marshmallows. Lars Williams, co-founder, said, “The stories of our lives can be captured through flavors,” and at least for me, they succeeded.

Empirical has three mysterious flavors available: Can 1, Can 2, and Can 3, each with an unusual profile.

4 12-ounce cans $45