Thirsty Thursday Eve - White Claw Hard Seltzer
Hard seltzers are the new IPA. They’re the “in” thing right now, adored by hipsters and the like, and criticized by your more traditional beer drinkers. These alcoholic sparkling waters are quickly gaining market share, while craft beers are other categories remain static or fall (Kendall, 2019). Being the adventurous soul that I am, new types of alcohol always interest me, even if I do feel like a stereotypical cool kid while trying them.
My first exposure to hard seltzers was the Truly Colima Lime flavor. It was available from the Ingles Mix-N-Match area one time, and I’m more than willing to try a drink if I can get it as a single, rather than committing to a full 6-pack of it. We threw one in with our weekend beer run, figuring it was worth a shot.
In this case, I’m very glad we only got one. It was awful. I don’t really care for seltzers or soda water anyway. Unflavored options seem to have a salty, bitter flavor. Flavored options like La Croix have the same shortcoming, since the flavors are so mild. As some people have described it, La Croix tastes like seltzer that was shipped in a truck near the fruit shown on the label, or like someone whispering the name of the fruit in your ear while you drink it. Suffice it to say, I don’t care much for seltzers I’ve had.
Recently, a friend sent me a picture of a Celsius Sparkling Watermelon fitness drink that he picked up in his work canteen, mentioning that it tasted much better than the Truly that we tried before. Curiosity got the better of me, and I checked my own employer’s vending area to see if perhaps we had the same product. Sure enough, we had several cans of the same flavor.
At $3 per can, it certainly wasn’t something I would regularly buy. If I did buy it again, I would buy a pack of them, somewhere that I don’t have to pay the convenience upcharge. But aside from the price, it was honestly really good. It gave me the mental image of drinking fizzy water while chewing watermelon flavored bubble gum. Amazingly, there was a type of sparkling water that I actually liked.
This new discovery sparked my interest in hard seltzers again. Maybe they weren’t all bad. If I could find a hard seltzer that tasted like the Celsius I tried, I could get behind that. I started looking into different options and reviews, to see if maybe others were sweeter or more flavorful than Truly.
In her review of several different brands of hard seltzer, St. Pierre listed several options that might be more in line with my own tastes (St. Pierre, 2019). Most notably, she included options from Henry’s and Smirnoff. Henry’s hard ginger ale is delicious, and I’ve liked more flavors of Smirnoff Ice than disliked. Maybe this preference would also translate to their hard seltzers. We made a pact to investigate the seltzer options at my local Ingles when the weekend arrived, to see if maybe we were missing out on something amazing.
At Ingles, most of the hard seltzer options mentioned online were available. They were all similar in price, so that wasn’t really a factor in the decision. Having already tried Truly before, and we all thought it was garbage, so that was out. Of the remaining options, Henry’s and White Claw seemed to be the most interesting. We knew we liked other drinks from the Henry’s brand, so that was a point in the favor of Henry’s. However, White Claw came in a 12 pack with 4 flavors, 3 cans of each. Henry’s was a 12 pack with only 3 flavors, and 6 cans were specifically lime. There were only three of us, so those ratios worked perfectly. We decided, though, that White Claw would give us 1 each of more different flavors. Besides, if we didn’t like the lime flavor, we weren’t stuck with 6 cans of it as we would be with Henry’s. White Claw, it is. Our flavor options were natural lime, raspberry, ruby grapefruit, and black cherry.
When we got back, we wasted no time cracking open a few cans while we cooked alligator brats (which I highly recommend, as an aside). We started with the ruby grapefruit, which had the characteristic slightly bitter but still sweet citrusy flavor of grapefruit. I kept waiting for the salty and more bitter flavor of seltzers I’ve tried before, but it never came. This was as smooth and mild as I wanted seltzer water to be.
As we proceeded through the other flavors, I was consistently impressed. The lime was good, with a good citrus flavor, but not as good as the grapefruit in my opinion. Raspberry had the tart tanginess that I enjoy, and again, no terrible seltzer flavor. Black cherry, one that I expected to like the least, may actually come in second place behind grapefruit. I’m picky about cherry flavors, but this tastes surprisingly similar to real cherry. I assumed it would be fake and overly syrupy, and I was fortunately wrong.
In hindsight, I learned that White Claw comes from the same company that makes Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a favorite of mine for several years now. By the same logic, it makes sense that I would like another of their products. Pace describes the flavor of White Claw as “a smidge sweeter than what we’d technically consider seltzer,” and maybe that’s what I want (Pace, 2018). Maybe I don’t like seltzer water anyway, but something a little sweeter is right up my alley. She goes on to goes on to call Smirnoff “the sweetest of all the options—it tastes more like a low-key soda than a seltzer,” which piques my interest even more. Next time I’m loading up on alcohol for the weekend, I’ll almost definitely grab a case of Smirnoff spiked sparkling seltzer to try.
Overall, I was tremendously impressed with all of the White Claw hard seltzer flavors. I definitely will approach seltzers with a more open mind now, but I still think they’re the new IPA regarding popularity in certain social circles. Even if you haven’t enjoyed seltzers before, White Claw is definitely worth trying, especially with the wide range of flavors available.
Resources:
Fitzpatrick, G. (2017, October 14). So Lidl has a new 100-calorie alcoholic drink - and it tastes like sparkling water. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.her.ie/food/lidl-new-100-calorie-alcoholic-drink-tastes-like-sparkling-water-369753
Kendall, J. (2018, December 03). Oskar Blues to Launch Hard Seltzer Line in 2019. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.brewbound.com/news/oskar-blues-to-launch-hard-seltzer-line-in-2019
Kendall, J. (2019, January 28). Nielsen: Off-Premise Beer Sales Flatten in 2018 as Hard Seltzer Sales Near $500 Million. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.brewbound.com/news/nielsen-off-premise-beer-sales-flatten-in-2018-as-hard-seltzer-sales-near-500-million
Pace, G. (2018, July 27). 6 Hard Seltzers You Should Be Drinking This Summer. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/drinks/g9978018/hard-seltzers/
St. Pierre, D. (2019, January 15). This Boozy Beverage Is A Tasty And Low-Cal Alternative To Beer. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.bestproducts.com/eats/drinks/g2835/alcoholic-hard-seltzer-water/
Trader Joe's. (2018, August 13). Shell House Sparkling Hard Seltzer. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article/4293
My first exposure to hard seltzers was the Truly Colima Lime flavor. It was available from the Ingles Mix-N-Match area one time, and I’m more than willing to try a drink if I can get it as a single, rather than committing to a full 6-pack of it. We threw one in with our weekend beer run, figuring it was worth a shot.
In this case, I’m very glad we only got one. It was awful. I don’t really care for seltzers or soda water anyway. Unflavored options seem to have a salty, bitter flavor. Flavored options like La Croix have the same shortcoming, since the flavors are so mild. As some people have described it, La Croix tastes like seltzer that was shipped in a truck near the fruit shown on the label, or like someone whispering the name of the fruit in your ear while you drink it. Suffice it to say, I don’t care much for seltzers I’ve had.
Recently, a friend sent me a picture of a Celsius Sparkling Watermelon fitness drink that he picked up in his work canteen, mentioning that it tasted much better than the Truly that we tried before. Curiosity got the better of me, and I checked my own employer’s vending area to see if perhaps we had the same product. Sure enough, we had several cans of the same flavor.
At $3 per can, it certainly wasn’t something I would regularly buy. If I did buy it again, I would buy a pack of them, somewhere that I don’t have to pay the convenience upcharge. But aside from the price, it was honestly really good. It gave me the mental image of drinking fizzy water while chewing watermelon flavored bubble gum. Amazingly, there was a type of sparkling water that I actually liked.
This new discovery sparked my interest in hard seltzers again. Maybe they weren’t all bad. If I could find a hard seltzer that tasted like the Celsius I tried, I could get behind that. I started looking into different options and reviews, to see if maybe others were sweeter or more flavorful than Truly.
In her review of several different brands of hard seltzer, St. Pierre listed several options that might be more in line with my own tastes (St. Pierre, 2019). Most notably, she included options from Henry’s and Smirnoff. Henry’s hard ginger ale is delicious, and I’ve liked more flavors of Smirnoff Ice than disliked. Maybe this preference would also translate to their hard seltzers. We made a pact to investigate the seltzer options at my local Ingles when the weekend arrived, to see if maybe we were missing out on something amazing.
At Ingles, most of the hard seltzer options mentioned online were available. They were all similar in price, so that wasn’t really a factor in the decision. Having already tried Truly before, and we all thought it was garbage, so that was out. Of the remaining options, Henry’s and White Claw seemed to be the most interesting. We knew we liked other drinks from the Henry’s brand, so that was a point in the favor of Henry’s. However, White Claw came in a 12 pack with 4 flavors, 3 cans of each. Henry’s was a 12 pack with only 3 flavors, and 6 cans were specifically lime. There were only three of us, so those ratios worked perfectly. We decided, though, that White Claw would give us 1 each of more different flavors. Besides, if we didn’t like the lime flavor, we weren’t stuck with 6 cans of it as we would be with Henry’s. White Claw, it is. Our flavor options were natural lime, raspberry, ruby grapefruit, and black cherry.
When we got back, we wasted no time cracking open a few cans while we cooked alligator brats (which I highly recommend, as an aside). We started with the ruby grapefruit, which had the characteristic slightly bitter but still sweet citrusy flavor of grapefruit. I kept waiting for the salty and more bitter flavor of seltzers I’ve tried before, but it never came. This was as smooth and mild as I wanted seltzer water to be.
As we proceeded through the other flavors, I was consistently impressed. The lime was good, with a good citrus flavor, but not as good as the grapefruit in my opinion. Raspberry had the tart tanginess that I enjoy, and again, no terrible seltzer flavor. Black cherry, one that I expected to like the least, may actually come in second place behind grapefruit. I’m picky about cherry flavors, but this tastes surprisingly similar to real cherry. I assumed it would be fake and overly syrupy, and I was fortunately wrong.
In hindsight, I learned that White Claw comes from the same company that makes Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a favorite of mine for several years now. By the same logic, it makes sense that I would like another of their products. Pace describes the flavor of White Claw as “a smidge sweeter than what we’d technically consider seltzer,” and maybe that’s what I want (Pace, 2018). Maybe I don’t like seltzer water anyway, but something a little sweeter is right up my alley. She goes on to goes on to call Smirnoff “the sweetest of all the options—it tastes more like a low-key soda than a seltzer,” which piques my interest even more. Next time I’m loading up on alcohol for the weekend, I’ll almost definitely grab a case of Smirnoff spiked sparkling seltzer to try.
Overall, I was tremendously impressed with all of the White Claw hard seltzer flavors. I definitely will approach seltzers with a more open mind now, but I still think they’re the new IPA regarding popularity in certain social circles. Even if you haven’t enjoyed seltzers before, White Claw is definitely worth trying, especially with the wide range of flavors available.
Resources:
Fitzpatrick, G. (2017, October 14). So Lidl has a new 100-calorie alcoholic drink - and it tastes like sparkling water. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.her.ie/food/lidl-new-100-calorie-alcoholic-drink-tastes-like-sparkling-water-369753
Kendall, J. (2018, December 03). Oskar Blues to Launch Hard Seltzer Line in 2019. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.brewbound.com/news/oskar-blues-to-launch-hard-seltzer-line-in-2019
Kendall, J. (2019, January 28). Nielsen: Off-Premise Beer Sales Flatten in 2018 as Hard Seltzer Sales Near $500 Million. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.brewbound.com/news/nielsen-off-premise-beer-sales-flatten-in-2018-as-hard-seltzer-sales-near-500-million
Pace, G. (2018, July 27). 6 Hard Seltzers You Should Be Drinking This Summer. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/drinks/g9978018/hard-seltzers/
St. Pierre, D. (2019, January 15). This Boozy Beverage Is A Tasty And Low-Cal Alternative To Beer. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.bestproducts.com/eats/drinks/g2835/alcoholic-hard-seltzer-water/
Trader Joe's. (2018, August 13). Shell House Sparkling Hard Seltzer. Retrieved March 9, 2019, from https://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article/4293
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