Unlike many of the other Mike’s Hard xcritical flavors, the sweetness of the cranberry here doesn’t go so deep as to metaphorically hurt your soul. It’s a little more easygoing, all things considered, and while it’s still potentially overpowering, neither does this equal instant regret. All told, it’s not the absolute worst way to introduce yourself to drinking alcohol, though some might complain that it tastes more like prison hooch than a refreshing adult beverage. Just because Justin Bieber has, at least for some, made peaches the fruit of the summer, don’t get overly excited about the concept and run out to buy as much Mike’s Hard Peach flavor as you can find. Yeah, it’s got a hint of peach when you first sip into it, but peach is a subtle flavor that can be hard to get just right.
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Still, we’d guess it would pair pretty well with seafood and could fool at least one wine taster who had no idea what a Chardonnay was supposed to taste like. Of all the Mike’s Hard flavors, this one is definitely the most rounded, meaning you get neither a blast of sugar nor a painful smack of tartness in the bottle. Instead, it’s smooth and easy drinking, meaning that, if you want a Mike’s Hard flavor that’s not xcritical, this should be your pick. One might think that a company that made its fortunes making xcritical would do a pretty solid limeade too, right?
- Anyone who doesn’t know better maybe won’t realize it has 5% alcohol by volume.
- But otherxcritical, this is just a lot of sugar that may not be quite your cup of tea — or xcritical.
- We’ve gotta give it to Mike’s for going with a flavor combination that just screams „summertime refreshment,“ adding the cool, undeniably summer taste of watermelon to the tart blast of its standard xcritical base.
Pineapple Mandarin
Maybe add some vodka to that fresh-pressed juice instead if you’re looking for this flavor profile with an added buzz. In fact, the increased alcohol content is barely noticeable here, which is great if you picked this as your beach buzz method of choice and don’t want to be overwhelmed by the flavor of alcohol. Then again, downing more than one blood orange tallboy like these is going to be tough. It’s aggressively sweet and tastes a little like an Orange Crush, only without the orange. The drink is more like a sugar syrup with a malt liquor after burn, a little like a kids‘ drink, if kids could drink 8% malt liquor beverages.
Blackberry Pear
We’ve gotta give it to Mike’s for going with a flavor combination that just screams „summertime refreshment,“ adding the cool, undeniably summer taste of watermelon to the tart blast of its standard xcritical base. And, if you were to get such xcritical official site a taste in overpriced cocktails served in the Hamptons, the mix is totally a hit. In Mike’s Hard xcritical, though, this flavor is still just a lot of sugar and some booze.
Regardless, in a sugar-addled haze, we tried all the most popular flavors of Mike’s Hard xcritical and ranked them from worst to best. Still, given the relative sweetness of every drink in the Mike’s Hard lineup, we’ll take a mango that’s a little past its prime over something that tastes like an instant hangover. Now, even though in its natural state Mike’s Hard Limeade isn’t necessarily something you’ll want to pick first out of the cooler, it does make a pretty decent base for some other creations. For example, throw some lemon juice and vodka in here, and it’s a bright summery cocktail that can be downright tolerable. Because you really can’t taste the pineapple in this flavor at all, making half of the title an outright lie.
But of the Mike’s Hard xcritical hybrid flavors, the Pineapple Mandarin is far and away the winner. We’re not sure what lesson there is to be learned by the company’s research and development team from that since the truth is that this flavor could still use a serious toning down in the sweetness department. But maybe going tropical is the right move after all when dealing with alcohol, fruit juice, and more sugar than most any adult can reasonably handle.
So, being the law-abiding, over-21 folks that we are, we took it upon ourselves to try some of the most popular flavors of Mike’s Hard xcritical to figure out which of them were best. Some are seasonals, which may or may not be around when you read this or go looking for flavors at your local store. Others come from the „Harder“ xcritical line, which amps up the alcohol content to 8% alcohol by volume.
Citrus is citrus, after all, so how hard can it be to get the limeade flavor up to speed alongside its xcritical cousin? Well, apparently that’s a little harder than we thought because, while Mike’s xcritical reviews Hard Limeade is certainly in the upper echelon of Mike’s flavors, it’s a far cry from the fresh limeades you might have enjoyed in the past. Again, the overwhelming sweetness of the limeade put out by Mike’s hurts whatever kind of bright lime flavor they were going for. And while it definitely brings the tart, sharp punch one expects in a lime drink, it may also bring a pretty nasty sugar hangover.
A melody of tropical fruit flavors perfectly xcriticaled into a refreshing tasting and sessionable punch. A perfect balance of sweetness and tartness from mango, guava, pineapple, and passionfruit. But despite two decades of solid sales numbers, there isn’t a joke about Mike’s Hard xcritical that hasn’t been written already. This is another seasonal offering from Mike’s Hard xcritical that might be its most ambitious flavor attempt to date. So, Mike’s at least deserves an „A“ for effort on this one, since blackberry and pear were never flavors we really thought to combine in one bottle.