Pre-Mixed Can Special

Today we’re shaking things up with a special pre-mixed drink special!

Here at the Booze Review office we decided to take a break from our usual adventure to Lidl and explore the treasures of low budget specialists Asda. While frolicking through the aisles I noticed an offer: 3 pre-mixed cans for £4. “Meh, that’ll do” I thought as I hurriedly swept the cans into my basket before looking for something better. I was originally going to put each drink in a separate review, but there’s really no reason not to drink them all in one sitting. The drinks are as follows:

Aren’t they beautiful?

• Malibu Caribbean Rum with Coconut & Cola
• Malibu Caribbean Rum with Coconut & Cranberry
• Hardys Bellini Premium Sparkling Strawberry Cocktail
• The Authentic Cocktail – Ready To Drink Cosmopolitan

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: that went downhill pretty fast, but fuck it, they were cheap so let’s get drinking. The Cosmopolitan wasn’t part of the 3 for £4 deal but it was only £1 so I threw that in too.

Malibu Caribbean Rum With Coconut & Cola

Pours a thick, creamy head, not unlike that of Guinness.

Malibu Caribbean Rum With Coconut & Cola comes in a whopping 250ml can at an almost overpowering 5%. The can doesn’t say much other than to “serve chilled for a refreshing taste of the Caribbean”. From that statement I’m going to assume that everybody in the Caribbean drinks these cheap cans of rum and coke, similar to Russians and their vodka.

Malibu looks pretty much as you would expect a rum and coke to look like. There isn’t much to smell other than a slightly noticeable scent of rum. The cola is obviously carbonated but it doesn’t stay this way for long, retaining a barely noticeable fizz after a minute or two. These drinks are made to be drank from the can, but this is a review, and so I have to give some appearance of sophistication. This is a rather bland drink which is quite sweet, however the price to alcohol ratio is far too high to make it a worthwhile beverage. Considering my usual rum to coke ratio would be a minimum of 50:50, the measly 5% is far too low to even get a slight buzz going. You would need to drink about 8 of these cans to start feeling anything, and at that price you could buy a cheap bottle of rum. Malibu & Cola is highly swallowable but is useless unless bought in bulk.

Booze Review rating: 5/10
★★★★★★★★★★

Malibu Caribbean Rum With Coconut & Cranberry

Who needs wine when you have cranberry juice?

More Malibu in a can, but this time with Cranberry. Once again this should be served chilled for a refreshing taste of the Caribbean, so I’m starting to think they don’t give a fuck about what their drinks are mixed with as long as it’s alcoholic. Like its cola infused brother, this drink is also 5% in a 250ml can.

When pouring this can into a glass I was very surprised by the colour, at first it seemed almost a luminous red, but in the glass it has a much darker appearance. Malibu smells very sweet, much more cherry than cranberry.  The first thing I thought of was those gummy cherry lips I used to buy as a kid, as well as cherry coke. Upon drinking it there is very little cranberry to be tasted, definitely much more of a cherry taste than cranberry. I would guess that by “Cranberry” it doesn’t mean “Pure cranberry juice”, but rather “Cranberry flavoured juice”, similar to how that floppy, orange American cheese is labeled as a “Cheese product”. Halfway through the can Malibu gets pretty sickening from the sweetness and fake cranberry taste. This is doubly upsetting for me because I know there are still two more  drinks to come. Malibu & Cranberry is best suited for a diabetic alcoholic who needs both sugar and alcohol at the one time, otherwise it isn’t worth picking up even as a quick chug.

Booze Review rating: 3/10
★★★★★★★★★★

The Authentic Cocktail – Ready To Drink Cosmopolitan

Remember “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!”

Yeah, I know. Get all your Sex and the City jokes over with so we can start this review. First of all I have to admit, I’ve drank a few of these before and they’re actually pretty good. I used to live beside a pub/off-license and cosmopolitans are great for when you want to drink but you’re hungover as fuck and are tired of nursing that warm beer you opened 20 minutes ago.

Yet again this is another 5%, 250ml can of pre-mixed drink. The Authentic Cocktail Co.’s cosmopolitan is “A blend of cranberry juice, lime juice, orange liqueur & premium vodka”. The can also states ‘Remember “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!”‘, something which I have found is best bellowed in your finest falsetto voice before pounding down a can of this fine beverage.

This drink doesn’t have much of a smell, consisting of a slight orange/berry scent with perhaps a slight hint of alcohol. The colour is quite a distinctive pink, slightly more intense than that of a rose wine. This cosmopolitan has a very fruity and sweet taste which resembles isotonic sports drinks such as Lucozade Sport and Powerade, which is part of the reason why this makes such a great hangover drink. By consuming this cosmopolitan you get the placebo effect of drinking a rehydrating sports drink but it also doubles with its “hair of the dog” cure, perhaps making this the ultimate hangover drink.

This drink is certainly a flavoursome liquid but suffers from the high cost:booze ratio of all premixed cans. While it is a delicious drink, it is also far too sweet and sickening to drink all night. Cosmopolitan is certainly an excellent choice to kick start a hungover drinking session but it is in no way something you should consider drinking all night. Shit-talk cosmopolitans all you want, but I highly reccommend buying a can of this for £1 before you dismiss it. This cosmopolitan gains points for its easiness to drink but falls short due to its failure to be an all night drink.

Booze Review rating: 7/10
★★★★★★★★★★

Hardys Bellini Premium Sparkling Strawberry Cocktail

And so we save the best until last. I don’t know why I even bought this. Maybe I thought it would be funny, but even before opening the can I knew it was going to be shit. I very much doubt anyone will come to Booze Review for an opinion on sparkling strawberry cocktails, but here it goes.

Wine for masochistic lightweights

Hardys don’t make great wine so I don’t know why they think they can mix their wine with other things to create something worthwhile. Surprisingly, Hardys is the strongest of our 4 pre-mixed cans at a strength of 5.5%, rather than the usual 5%. The can states “This Strawberry Bellini will add some sparkle to your everyday celebrations”. I don’t know any kind of celebration that occurs every day, but in the off-chance it does happen, wine and peaches certainly wouldn’t be my immediate thought. After inspecting the can I noticed a barely readable message printed in pale yellow on the pale pink background of the can reading: “READY TO SERVE IN A TALL WINE GLASS OVER ICE FOR A DELICIOUSLY INDULGENT TASTE”. I certainly hope so my dear sweet Bellini, I certainly hope so.

I expected this Bellini to look similar to a rose wine, but upon pouring it I was surprised by its darker, cloudier appearance. Curiously, I sniffed the contents of the glass. It smelled strangely familiar. I was able to force myself to pick up on the strawberry and perhaps a hint of raspberry, but no, that wasn’t it. I sniffed a little longer until suddenly it hit me. I now knew what this sparkling strawberry cocktail resembles.

Hardys Bellini resembles that situation we all go through at one point in our lives. After a night of heavy drinking, somewhere around your 4th or 5th bottle of bottom shelf wine, you’ll need to visit the bathroom. After a long, drunken piss the room starts spinning and the booze comes back up. Luckily you’re in the bathroom so you only need to bend over to vomit neatly into the toilet. That exact moment is what Hardys Bellini smells like: having your head inside a toilet bowl full of alcoholic piss and wine vomit.

After having been through the ordeal of smelling this drink, the time to taste it was drawing closer. At this point I had forgotten it was sparkling, and a shit carbonated wine is the last thing I wanted to consume. This drink is vile. It tastes like some kind of fruity booze somebody has tried to brew themselves, but didn’t have all the ingredients, so substituted yeast with a packet of old pancakes. Luckily the aftertaste doesn’t linger, but if you lick your lips you’ll have to experience this barf booze once again. I enjoy cheap wine, but this is 1/3 the strength and tastes 10 times worse than a bottle of tramp juice. The fact that it’s a wine and has such a low alcohol content means you can’t even mix it with something to kill off the taste.

At this point I remembered I still have the dumb little plastic lemon from the Castelgy Gin experience. Fuck it, it’s not like I can ruin this drink with a splash of lemon juice.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have only a can of Hardys Bellini and a dumb little plastic lemon, I highly suggest you do not mix the two. Remember earlier when I said there was little aftertaste? Our shitty little yellow friend managed to release these hidden flavours and supply that added kick you never wanted.

Overall Hardys Bellini is about as enjoyable as stepping in dog shit. Some wines suggest drinking with cheese, seafood or white meats, but I would suggest munching on a car tyre before attempting to drink this.

Booze Review rating: 2/10
★★★★★★★★★★

So there you have it. Booze Review’s pre-mixed can special. If you enjoyed it as much as I did then you’ll probably never return to this website again.