The Classiest Ready-to-Drink Cocktails in Cans and Bottles

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Click through to see the best ready-to-drink cocktails on the market.
Kaitlyn Flannagan for Observer

Cutwater Spirits Canned Cocktails

One of the more prolific premade cocktail brands, San Diego-based Cutwater Spirits uses their original liquors to make a whopping 15 canned cocktail variations. Packaged in 12-ounce cans, they’ve got something for everyone—no matter your spirit preference. While the line contains straightforward cocktails like gin and tonic or rum and cola, they also have unique variations like cucumber vodka soda, horchata cold brew and two different bloody marys (spicy and mild). If you’re a fan of elderflower (the latest flavor trend), you’ll especially love their elderflower vodka spritz, which is sweet, refreshing and well balanced with a hint of lemon.

Courtesy Cutwater Spirits

On The Rocks

If you consider yourself a connoisseur of classic cocktails but far from a mixologist, this is about to be your new favorite premade cocktail brand. Made with no additives or artificial ingredients, On The Rocks are ready-to-drink premium cocktails that are crafted with spirits you already know and love. The bottles are stunning to look at, and filled with colorful cocktails that will have you wanting to put them out on display. Plus, with six different varieties, including a Knob Creek old-fashioned and an Effen cosmopolitan, there is something for everyone...even brand loyalists.

Courtesy On The Rocks

Greenbar Distillery Spritz

Made with organic spirits from Los Angeles-based Greenbar Distillery, these canned cocktails are perfect for any lover of the classic Italian spritz, or anyone who is looking for a light and not-too-sweet drink to sip. Each of its three varieties (orange, hibiscus and ginger) are not only bubbly but well-balanced—riding the line between sweet and bitter in a way that’s similar to the classic aperitif. If you’re a fan of the vodka mule, you’ll love their ginger spritz, which has similar flavor notes as well as a few unfamiliar surprises like apple and spice. Drinking these cocktails certainly feels like a special occasion, and with a low ABV content, it’s easy to enjoy more than one.

Courtesy Greenbar Distillery
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Miami Cocktail Co

Created in Miami (no surprise there) by Ross Graham and Simon Benstead, Miami Cocktail Company is all about organic craft cocktails. Free of artificial colors, flavors and sweeteners, they come in two varieties to choose from. If you (like me and many others) are a seltzer fiend and like a bit of bubble in your drink, you’ll enjoy their spritz canned cocktails. With five different, fruity flavors, Miami Cocktail Co. adds unique flavor twists to classic cocktails, like a hint of elderflower and ginger to their margarita and hibiscus to their paloma. Their small batch original cocktails come in 750 ml bottles that are perfect for keeping in stock in your fridge, and include flavors like blood orange mimosa, sunset sangria and copper pot margarita.

Courtesy Miami Cocktail Co

Austin Cocktails

If you appreciate a good tipple and supporting women-owned companies, you’ll love sister-founded Austin Cocktails. Their 750 ml bottle (which contains just over six servings) has a clean and classy aesthetic that’s perfect for gifting...or saving for yourself. Made with natural ingredients and sweetened only with organic agave, they have something for every taste preference, with a cucumber vodka mojito, new school gin mule, ruby red cocktail, perfect bergamot orange margarita and peppered maple blood orange bourbon cocktail.

Courtesy Austin Cocktails

Hochstadter’s Slow & Low

Before mixologists and craft cocktail bars there was a drink called rock and rye—a drink made of rye whiskey and rock candy—that was a staple of bars and saloons across the country. Though you may have never had the opportunity to try one yourself, you have a chance to try a modern take on this cocktail with Hochstadter’s slow and low cans. Taking inspiration from the brand’s pre-prohibition recipe, these 100 ml cans are made with aged straight rye whiskey, honey, dried navel oranges, rock candy and Angostura bitters and taste like a slightly sweeter version of an old-fashioned. Though the cans are small and the cocktail is smooth and very easy to sip on, they sure pack a punch at 84 proof.

Courtesy Hochstadter’s Slow & Low
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Plain Spoke Cocktails

Founded by cocktail-lover Tom Dufek in 2018, Plain Spoke Cocktails is relatively new to the premade drinks game. The brand makes two flavors—Moscow mule (which almost tastes like a grown up Sprite) and bourbon smash. These cans are not only cute and colorful, but convenient as well. Although they were made for taking on the go, these cocktails are so sweet and tasty that you might find yourself stocking up on them to enjoy as a treat at home.

Courtesy Plain Spoke Cocktails

You & Yours Canned Cocktails

Created by the California-based distillery You & Yours, these straightforward canned cocktails are made with the brand’s craft vodka and gins. You can get them in the simple variations of gin and tonic, vodka mule and cranberry vodka soda. If you're expecting these drinks to be as no-frills as a can of beer or spiked seltzer, that is not the case. The cans are charming and fun to look at, and the cocktails within them are bright and easy to drink, setting off the brand's original spirits.

Courtesy You & Yours

Novo Fogo Canned Sparkling Caipirinhas

If you’re a fan of Brazil’s national cocktail, this drink does not need an introduction. But for those who don’t know, meet the caipirinha, a cocktail made with cachaça, sugar and lime. Novo Fogo has taken this drink to an all-new level with their canned sparkling caipirinhas. If you like bright and fruity drinks like the mojito, you’ll love this sparkling cocktail, which comes in original lime as well as passion fruit-lime and mango-lime varieties. Plus, each cocktail is crafted with their organic silver cachaça—which is made in small batches at a zero-waste distillery in Brazil—so you can take comfort in supporting an environmentally-friendly brand.

Courtesy Novo Fogo
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Goslings Dark ‘n Stormy Ready-To-Drink

Those who love the dark 'n' stormy are certainly loyal fans, and now there’s an easier way to enjoy the cocktail. As it somehow always seems hardest to procure ginger beer when a dark 'n' stormy craving hits, this canned version makes it easy to enjoy one at the drop of a hat. Made with all of the classic elements like dark rum and ginger beer, it’s zesty and sweet but better yet, requires no mixing.

Courtesy Goslings
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Is it a stretch to say that figuring out how to enjoy a tasty cocktail without taking a trip to a bar or owning an arsenal of drink-making supplies is a universal struggle? Surely many of you out there have found yourselves looking for an easy beverage to take on the go, but dreading the bloated beer belly or lazy wine-drunk aftermath that the simplest two options present. Or maybe you’re dying to treat yourself to a cocktail but your mixology skills and bar cart are lacking (I mean, not everyone can have an instagram-worthy array of bottles). What is one supposed to do?

Though ready-to-drink cocktails have been widely accessible and popular in the United Kingdom (long before the priest in Fleabag made us swoon by serving up canned gin and tonics), they haven’t become quite as mainstream here in the U.S. But luckily, spirits brands are starting to catch on, and new premade cocktails have been hitting the shelves at a rapid rate.

Not only do these brands solve the age-old struggle of how to pour yourself a delicious drink without all the extra effort, they’re also well-branded and generally nice to look at, packaged in cans and bottles that you’ll love pulling out at a picnic or putting on display in your kitchen at home. So whatever and wherever you like to drink, here are the best cocktails that have all the pleasure of drinking with none of the hassle of making.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Food & Drink, cocktails, on the rocks, austin cocktails, cutwater spirits, goslings, greenbar distillery, hochstadter's slow and low

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