Is Doritos Flavored Booze Great or Gross?
Empirical x Doritos Nacho Cheese Spirit
Many years ago, when I was just getting started as a spirits writer, I was sent a bottle of vodka flavored to taste like Froot Loops cereal. I enlisted my college-aged cousins to taste it with me, and we agreed — it really was like Froot Loops in a glass. But we couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to make such a concoction, unless they were going after the lucrative ten-year-old vodka drinker market.
Several years later, I was given a glass of something called Skrewball, which I, and the backward baseball cap-wearing crowd in general soon learned, was a peanut butter-flavored whiskey. And they nailed it — it smelled and tasted just like peanut butter in a glass. But again, I asked myself, is this really a good idea? I mean, a PB& J sandwich with a nice glass of rye whiskey is a far superior idea. Isn’t it?
Empirical x Doritos Nacho Cheese Spirit
And now, the spirits industry tastemakers are at it again, with Empirical x Doritos Nacho Cheese Spirit, a 42% ABV version of the ubiquitous chip. But this time there’s a catch. It’s made, in conjunction with Frito-Lay, by Empirical Spirits, the self-proclaimed “flavor company” born in Copenhagen and now based in Brooklyn. Empirical takes innovation to a whole new level with its un-pigeonhole-able flavored spirits. I’ve had a few of them, and have spent an evening drinking the Empirical line with co-founder (and alum of the legendary Noma restaurant) Lars Williams. And their stellar reputation is well-earned — their “The Plum, I Suppose,” made with plum pits that impart an almond/marzipan flavor, is used in the Key Lime Pie cocktail at Double Chicken Please, one of the best cocktails I had in 2023. And yes, it tastes exactly like a key lime pie, almost down to the light, frothy texture of the drink. Read more about Empirical.
Of Doritos, Vacuum Distillation (and Feet)
But… a nacho cheese flavored spirit? If anyone could pull it off, it’s Empirical. And pull it off they have — to my palate, at least, it really was like a Dorito in a glass. That’s owing, no doubt, to the fact that genuine Doritos were used in the making of this spirit. Through some combination of vacuum distillation and dark magic, it feels like you’re drinking a Dorito because, in actuality, you are.
Mark Emil Hermansen, left and Lars Williams, right
Whether this is a good thing depends on your personal taste, I suppose. I have read many a positive review of Doritos x Empirical, written by people whose taste I respect. And these reviews make me feel like a grumpy old man ranting about how Taylor Swift can’t hold a candle to the Beatles or something. Because while I did get the sensation of drinking a Dorito, that sensation was not at all pleasant. In fact, I thought it was disgusting.
Now, maybe I’m the wrong person to judge because my opinion of the venerable chip is forever colored by the fact that, in college, I had a girlfriend whose feet, on warmer summer days, smelled exactly like Doritos. And to this day the association lingers. So I let my wife, whose feet fortunately do not smell like any Frito-Lay product that I’ve encountered, have a sip. Her reaction was somewhat more nuanced: “It tastes like a soggy Dorito that was under someone’s bed in their dorm room for a week. Like soggy Doritos crossed with wet socks.”
Empirical x Doritos In Cocktails, Three Ways
EmpiricalxDoritos Double Triangle Margarita Cocktail
But really, who drinks a Doritos-flavored spirit neat, at room temperature, no less? I figured the best way to give Doritos x Empirical (or Empirical x Doritos) a chance was to use it in a cocktail, with recipes approved by the Empirical folks themselves. First up was the Double Triangle Margarita — which henceforth should be known as the Dorito-rita because, come on, it’s a way better name. The recipe called for .75 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice, an ounce each of blanco tequila (I used Altamar’s Lagrimas del Valle) and Empirical x Doritos, and .75 ounces of agave syrup. Shake it up with ice, pour into an ice-filled rocks glass rimmed with Tajin and garnished with a lime wheel, and you’re good to go.
I followed the instructions to the letter. I got through about 2/3 of it — while watching Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour movie with my 13-year-old daughter, lest you think I really am one of those Taylor-hating Beatles fans — and thought it tasted like a standard margarita, maybe a tad sweeter than I’d have made it. But thirty seconds after each sip, the taste in my mouth was exactly, and I mean exactly, as if I’d just eaten a Dorito. Now, again, maybe some people love this bonus feature. But I thought it was kind of gross. For me, the appeal of eating Doritos is the crunch and the texture of the chip itself, not the nacho cheese-as-imagined-by-a-flavor-scientist aftertaste.
Fortunately, I’d been given three recipes with which to work. Next up was the Red Bag Old Fashioned, with a 3:1 ratio of nacho cheese spirit (it will never not be weird to type that) to mezcal (I used El Silencio espadin, though the recommended spirit is Empirical’s own Ayuuk, which I didn’t have on hand); simple syrup; Angostura bitters; and a tiny pinch of salt. In all honesty, this recipe did not sound good on the page, and it did not taste good in my mouth. Your mileage may vary, but lightly sweet liquid Doritos almost made me gag. I made it through two sips before dumping the rest down the sink. By contrast, the Mary Mary — a Bloody Maria variation which I prefer to call a Bloody Dory — actually sounded the most promising of the three. Nacho cheese-flavored booze paired with tequila (I went all-out and employed El Tesoro reposado), tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, black pepper, cayenne, etc…. that could work, right? Well, again, it depends. Do you want synthetic nacho cheese aftertaste lingering in your piehole after each sip of what would otherwise be a perfectly tolerable Bloody Mary — er, Dory? Hey, you might. I don’t. And my wife was less charitable: “The aftertaste doesn’t even taste like Doritos. It tastes like plastic.” I don’t think I agree, but I didn’t disagree with enough conviction to put up any kind of argument.
Conclusion: I’ll Be Dead Soon
As a middle-aged drinker of primarily aged spirits, I’ll go out on a limb and venture that Empirical x Doritos Nacho Cheese Spirit wasn’t made with my palate in mind. I haven’t pounded a shot, gone to a frat party, or consumed anything on a dare for decades. As a friend of mine often says to me when he tires of hearing my rants about the kids today and their foibles, “It’s OK, you’re old. You’ll be dead soon.” And if millennials and Gen-Z-ers decide that they stan this stuff, then who am I to tell them otherwise?
At the same time, I’d like to think I can tell the difference between good and bad booze, and I could not in good conscience put this in the “good” camp no matter how much slack I cut it. The fault lies not in the execution — Empirical rose to the challenge and did a bang-up job creating an 84-proof recreation of one of America’s favorite snack foods — but in the concept itself. Yes, it’s a surefire money maker, even though at $65, it’s a bit steep for the early-20s crowd that will likely gravitate to it. But not all challenges need to be risen to. And I believe it says in the Bible, “What will it profit a brand if it gains the world, yet forfeits its notion of what, you know, actually tastes good?” Amen.