Premade Cocktail Mixers in 3 Tiers of Quality
By Kath / July 28, 2022 / No Comments / Home
Premade cocktail mixers are booming in popularity. As a lot of people are still worried about gathering in tight crowds, going to the bar isn’t as common as it used to be. Not to mention, a wide-reaching economic crisis around the world is really hurting people’s wallets. So, they’re taking the bar home with them.
You might have noticed that these come in three real price ranges. That’s for a reason, and each of the price ranges does have its pros and cons.
To help you find out how much you need to spend, we’re going to go over the traits of each one.
Let’s get started.
1: Bottom-Shelf
We’ll call the cheapest premade cocktail mixers “bottom-shelf mixers”. These can usually be bought as singles for a dollar or just slightly more, or you can get a six-pack that costs about a dollar per mixer.
To put it bluntly, they’re not very good.
Mixers in this price range tend to cut costs by using very low-quality alcohol, and they don’t even use much of it. These typically have about a shot of bottom-shelf alcohol per can in them. Essentially, you’re drinking a bunch of juice and nonsense to get one shot of alcohol. If you’re going to do that, you might as well just buy the little shooter bottles at your local convenience store.
We can’t really recommend these to many people. However, if you’re on a budget, and you can’t stand the taste of straight alcohol, you might find some value in this quality range.
2: Mid-Shelf
In the middle of the pricing spectrum, you can expect to pay about two or three dollars per mixer, and they usually come in packs of six or twelve. The larger the pack, the larger the discount per can that you usually get.
This is a solid choice that will suit most people. They usually contain multiple shots spread across different alcohols, and while every shot might not be the highest quality alcohol, the dominant liquor will likely be a more well-known and high-quality option.
On top of that, a mid-range cocktail mixer is probably going to balance its alcohol against its more flavor-based ingredients fairly well. This means that you should be able to pick up on the flavor of the alcohol without it being overbearing, but it shouldn’t taste like someone poured four Kool-Aid packets into a shot of vodka.
Overall, this is the best value for your money, and the majority of your options in this price range will be enjoyable.
3: Top Shelf
This is kind of the opposite of our first list entry. Whereas the bottom shelf is so poorly crafted it’s not worth trying most of the time, the top shelf is so well-crafted that the return on your investment is lower than it should be.
These mixers use only the best alcohol and ingredients. However, the difference between a top-tier liquor and a mid-tier liquor is far smaller than the difference between the bottom and mid. Besides that, the price of a top-tier mixer can easily hit six to eight dollars per can; that’s way too much for the little boost in the quality you get.
This is more of a splurge than anything else, and unless you have a ton of money to waste, we’d stick with mid-tier mixers 90% of the time. Luckily, it’s still far cheaper than the cost of a pub cocktail.