Jim Beam Coolers are sometimes great, sometimes gross and never taste like bourbon
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 (or food) that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Jim Beam needs no introduction. It's like Honda or Budweiser, a staple of its industry and ever-present wherever you go.
The Kentucky bourbon has been around since the 1700s, evolving slowly, then very quickly as whiskey suffered through downswings (prohibition, the 1980s) before exploding. But just making a decent bourbon isn't enough in a landscape where hard seltzers and legal cannabis are gobbling up market share. So Jim Beam is jumping into the canned cocktail space.
Well, the "malt beverage" space. I'm not sure there's any actual bourbon involved in the brand's Kentucky Coolers, and it turns out it's pretty much impossible to find a full ingredients list online. So you get platitudes about "bourbon taste" and "bourbon notes" but nothing that says "YES, THERE'S ACTUAL JIM BEAM BOURBON IN HERE." Which, not to get all Tommy Boy on you, is a guarantee I would like to see on the can.
Maybe that's just semantics, but Absolut's mashups with Ocean Spray promise actual vodka in each can. "Malt beverage," too often, is the realm of neutral spirits. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if I'm drinking Jim Beam branded products I would really like to be able to taste the Jim Beam inside.
Will Kentucky Coolers come through despite their obtuse labeling? Let's find out.
Lemonade Blueberry: B+
It pours without carbonation and smells entirely pleasant. It's mostly citrus, but dig deep and you get a little bit of that blueberry flavor. Blueberry is vastly underrepresented on the canned cocktail spectrum, so I'm excited for a little taste of a superior fruit.
The first sip is familiar. A little underwhelming at first -- it tastes a lot like other canned cocktails. Then the light current of blueberry kicks in. It's minimal, but it makes a difference, lifting this from average to... well, not great, but better. The drink itself is light and sweet, though you wouldn't be able to tell there's Jim Beam on there from sip to sip.
That's not a bad thing -- I like Jim Beam, but a 120 calorie canned cocktail is aimed specifically at a market that sorta doesn't. It's easy to drink and carries that lemon-blueberry mantle well, Not overpowering, but not boozy, either. It's a solid cocktail drink. I'm pounding one during a fantasy football draft and it's doing its job.
Crush Peach: A-
It pours white and slightly cloudy with just a little carbonation. It's got a certain peach ring smell to it that's sweet but not overwhelming.
There's a slight hardness to it that makes it stand out from similar cocktails. An upfront... not quite boozy sharpness that lets you know it's not a soda. From there, the peach kicks in to smooth things out and that light carbonation leads to a balanced finish. That peach isn't overpowering and the sweetness inside is handled with a light touch, leaving it halfway between a syrupy hard tea-type drink and a hard seltzer.
Rather, imagine a hard seltzer with more flavor. That's where Crush Peach lands, never blowing you away but providing enough to keep you coming back. It's crisp and a little dry toward the end, which is right where I want to be with a canned cocktail. Or, in this case, a "malt beverage with natural flavors."
There's something about that finish -- a little salt, a little tart -- that makes this appealing. It's not perfect, but for a 120 calorie cocktail it's pretty solid.
Lemonade Strawberry: C+
Look, the can has lemonade in the top left and strawberry underneath it to the right. How would you read that?
Anyway, it pours a pinkish grey and gives off soft wafts of strawberry candy. This one immediately tastes boozier than the others; a hollow, neutral malt that makes this taste more like a hop, skip and go naked than a canned seltzer. It's more of a strong radler than a lemonade cocktail.
Yeah, I'm not sure why I'm getting beer undertones from this, but while they're minor they're there. It's less apparent from a glass than in a can. And the sweetness and a minimal fruit flavor clocks in at the end to help clear it away, which does help.
Still, after a pretty solid peach offering this one misses the mark. It feels like a bad cocktail you experimented with when you were broke as hell in college. And while I appreciate the nostalgia, I'm set otherwise.
Crush Orange: B-
This pours like the, uh, Crush Peach? A little cloudy and white with minor carbonation. It smells acidic with major "powdered orange drink" vibes. That could be good, could be bad, let's see.
Like the lemonade strawberry, it's boozier than you'd expect. It works better against a citrus backdrop however. It tastes a lot like a fuzzy navel or a wine cooler, though the carbonation adds a crispness to it that takes away the syrupy, sloppy finish you'd get with either.
Still, it's a little harsh up front, but at least it tastes like a cocktail. Not an especially interesting one, but the fruit flavor is obvious and the carbonation helps keep it light. It's better than a White Claw, but in terms of the Jim Beam mix pack it ranks toward the bottom.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
This is a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Jim Beam Coolers over a cold can of Hamm’s?
The peach and blueberry lemonade, sure. Otherwise, I think I'm good.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Jim Beam Coolers are sometimes great, sometimes gross and never taste like bourbon
