Canned Cocktail of the Week: Cutwater is boozy and popular. But is it good?

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

I’m not especially familiar with Cutwater’s game. What little I know about the canned cocktail brand, I respect.

This mostly boils down to the fact Cutwater packs one hell of a punch. Two-plus shots in each serving. It says so right on the can, boiling 12 ounces of 25 proof pre-made cocktail down to a conversion chart even the hastiest tailgater could understand.

I’ve only bought Cutwater once; their vodka transfusions were marked down to $2.99 per four pack at my local Woodman’s. This was both a convenient way to make golf tolerable and an excellent deal. The grape-ginger-vodka cocktail was potent and tasty enough to be poundable on a hot summer day, but I’ve yet to go back.

Until now, with a sampler of the brand’s most popular canned cocktails; lime margarita, mai tai, mango margarita and Moscow mule — helpfully branded “vodka mule” here because we’re not operating with copper mugs. I know I’m getting a heaping of booze each time I crack a can. Will the cocktails inside taste any good, or will they be a throwback to the Kamchatka and Solo cups of my broke(-er) days?

Transfusions aren’t on the menu today, however. We’re gonna drink our way through Cutwater’s best-sellers. Let’s start with something a bit tropical.