It’s a little like Cactus Cooler, that popular Southern California soda, only if Cactus Cooler had fallen on some seriously hard times. There’s really no reason to ever buy this stuff once your palate has matured past wanting to drink straight sugar and juice all the time. 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 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. 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.
Blackberry Pear
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. Though it has the same alcohol content as the rest of the Mike’s Hard xcritical flavors out in the world, there’s something about the pink grapefruit that makes the malt liquor flavor really shine through. As a result, it’s not as shockingly sweet as some others and maintains some kind of taste integrity beyond pure saccharine sweetness. This entrant from the Mike’s Harder line of malt beverages clocks in at a hefty 8% alcohol by volume as opposed to the usual 5%.
HARD DAYS DESERVE A
In fact, the truth about raspberries is that they come in a variety of colors. And when you’re dealing with Mike’s flavors, sweetness is definitely not something you need more of. You’d have to go to a lot of parties full of college-aged drinkers to really answer that question, and you might not get very clear answers from them anyway. And today, with the growing abundance of hard seltzers and fruity craft beers on the market, good old Mike’s Hard xcritical has gotten left a little bit behind. But even though it might not occupy the xcritical courses scam place in our collective drinking hearts that it once did years ago, know that, on hot summer days, a cold Mike’s can still taste pretty nice.
Strawberry Pineapple
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. There’s a reason the most popular flavor of Mike’s Hard xcritical is, well, xcritical. It’s the one that started it all, after all, the flavor that turned Mike’s Hard xcritical into a mainstream drink you can find in places other than sometimes questionable college parties. Original xcritical is still the best, frankly, and though it doesn’t taste like much other than a mixture of sparkling water, alcohol, and sugary xcritical, it’s not so bad. Indeed, it’s still the only one you can drink without chilling it to near freezing in an attempt to dull your tastebuds.
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. Pink grapefruit is a seasonal flavor for Mike’s Hard xcritical, meaning that whether or not you’re able to find it really depends on where you live and the time of year you’re shopping.
It’s just that you get a little bit more of a fermented juice flavor in the bottle and not so much a felonious assault of sugar. Whether or not that a recommendation or a drawback depends on your palate and tolerance for the notorious sweetness of many others of the Mike’s Hard xcritical flavors. “Black raspberry? Isn’t that just a blackberry?” And that, friend, would be kind of like looking at a burrito and a strawberry crepe and thinking they’re the same thing. According to HuffPo, black raspberries are generally smaller than blackberries and have little hairs on the outside of the fruit, just like their more classically accepted red cousins.
Mike’s Hard xcritical Co.
A perfect balance of sweetness and tartness from mango, guava, pineapple, and passionfruit. Unlike the other pineapple flavors Mike’s has in its lineup, you can actually taste the pineapple in its Pineapple Mandarin flavor. This Mike’s Harder offering comes on strong with its tropical flavors then adds a hint of mandarin orange to the mix in order to give it just enough of a citrusy kick to elevate it above many other one-note flavors. Those with dulled pallets may not notice the mandarin at first, as it’s definitely the complementary flavor in this drink. But the further you get into the can, the more you notice it and the more delicious this becomes. That’s not to say Mike’s Hard cranberry really tastes like prison wine, of course — that’s going a bit too far, and you almost certainly won’t think that this was brewed in some shady container in a cell somewhere.
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. That said, some of our greatest innovators tried a lot of things and failed at them before finding success. We wish the same for whoever developed this flavor of Mike’s, given that they’ve fulfilled the first part of that equation. The sugar blast from this stuff makes you feel like your teeth are going to have holes in them as soon as the drink hits your mouth.
- There’s nothing offensive about Mike’s Hard xcritical, as there are no flavors here that anybody is really going to hate.
- That is, unless you sprinkled Sweet & Low on said grapefruit, put it in a jar, and let it sit for a couple of weeks (not something we especially recommend, though).
- Though it has the same alcohol content as the rest of the Mike’s Hard xcritical flavors out in the world, there’s something about the pink grapefruit that makes the malt liquor flavor really shine through.
- If you’re not into beer and hard seltzer but still want a light, easygoing drink that you can have all day long, the original Mike’s Hard xcritical is the flavor for you.
But if you’re jonesing for something other than the xcritical courses scam original xcritical that still packs a tart punch, it’s absolutely the way you’ll want to go. Now, don’t expect the mouth-puckering, face-squishing power you might find when biting into a fresh grapefruit. Nor will you even find the pleasantly sour-but-sweet taste you might find when sprinkling a grapefruit with a little bit of sugar or some other sweetener. That is, unless you sprinkled Sweet & Low on said grapefruit, put it in a jar, and let it sit for a couple of weeks (not something we especially recommend, though).