Sunday, November 17, 2024
HomeEntertainment NewsTo celebrate Blake Lively's new Betty Booze range, I tried 40 canned...

To celebrate Blake Lively's new Betty Booze range, I tried 40 canned cocktails to find the best


We put our taste buds on the line to see how Blake Lively’s new Betty Booze compares to other canned cocktails

There’s clearly not enough money in being a global celebrity these days, they’re all launching booze brands. Remember the days when it used to be perfume?

Blake Lively is the latest to enter the drinks game.

You know, her of Gossip Girl fame, that shark film and being married to Ryan Reynolds? Ok, that’s selling her short, she’s pretty much A-List Hollywood royalty at this point.

Anyway, Blake has recently dropped three canned cocktails under the name Betty Booze. There’s a Sparkling Tequila and Lime Shiso, Sparkling Tequila and Oak Smoked Lemonade and Sparkling Bourbon, Apple Ginger Sour Cherry in the range. So far, so tempting, and they’re all widely available at Majestic for a reasonable £3 a 355ml can. And at 4.5%, Blake’s not going crazy on the booze either.

I guess if your husband is a liquor mogul, what with Ryan heading up Aviation Gin, then it’s not a stretch to foray into canned cocktails.

Interestingly though, and I don’t want to sound gossipy, but Blake doesn’t use Aviation Gin in any of her tinnies. You go girl! It’s probably because none of her cocktails actually contain gin, but I’m going with the strong independent woman angle.

Our Drinks Editor Rob Buckhaven tasted 40 canned cocktails alongside Blake Lively’s Betty Booze range

Naturally, as a drinks busybody I had to stick my oar in and see what all the fuss was about.

So, I took it upon myself to taste Blake’s tins alongside 37 competitors, aka the good, bad and the fugly.

If I told you my kitchen smelt like a boozy boiled-sweet factory by the end of sampling 40 supermarket canned cocktails, that wouldn’t even be doing it justice. My husband, Tom, wandered in at one point and referred to it as smelling like ‘toxic soup’, and he’s not even the dramatic type.

Metro’s drinks editor knows a thing or two about a good cocktail (Picture: Natasha Pszenicki)

Don’t even get me started on my teeth, which somehow clung to my gums throughout the entire sugary ordeal, and some are still with me now. For a minute there, it looked like dentures could be part of my journey. 

While we’re on the subject of health, forget the booze for a second, it’s got to be the sugar in many of these RTD cocktails that’s the killer. I’m not a doctor, but my eyes were whirling in my head like pinwheels from the sugar high and I wasn’t even swallowing.

Anyway, here’s my professional evaluation of Blake’s Betty Booze and my highlights of the others in my tasting.

Please note, these aren’t like for like, it’s based on general quality. I use a scoring system out of 100, so here they are highest to lowest.

Betty Booze – £3 per 355ml can, 4.5%, Majestic

Our verdict? They’re fresh, innovative with a good balance of flavours (Picture: Betty Booze)

Sparkling Bourbon and Apple Ginger Sour Cherry (89), Sparkling Tequila and Oak Smoked Lemonade (89), Sparkling Tequila and Lime Shiso (88)

I’m not going to lie, there was pressure to like these. I’m a fan of Blake and there’s clearly been a lot of investment into this range.

Luckily, I did like them.

They’re fresh, innovative with a good balance of flavours, plus they’re a generous size. If I were to offer constructive critique, take a leaf out of MOTH’s book (below) by making the serves smaller and ramping up the booze, as at 4.5% abv, I could barely taste it. But then again, they seem intentionally more of a light and spritzy style, using sparkling water and premium ingredients, so…

MOTH – £3.90 per 125ml can, 10-14.9%, Tesco

The Moth Margarita, complexity and kick ass packaging (Picture: Moth)

Margarita (95), Negroni (95), Espresso Martini (94), Cosmopolitan (94), Old Fashioned (93), Pina Colada (92), Paloma (90)

MOTH are serving the sort of apex quality you would expect at a swanky London bar, in a can. Sure, they’re dinky, but they’re 10 -14.9% abv standard serves with depth, complexity and kick ass packaging.

The Margarita delivers instantly recognisable flavours of the herbaceous tequila, they use Enemigo, together with zesty notes of fresh lime. The Negroni includes Tarquin’s Gin, with earthy, bitter, fresh flavours of candied bitter orange. The quality of ingredients is evident on the first sip, there’s a balance of flavours and every ingredient has its moment to shine. I could go on.

Marksologist – £3.50 per 150ml can, 14%, M&S

Strong packaging and style from this one (Picture: M&S)

Smoked Pineapple Daiquiri (86)

Strong packaging and style, cloyingly sweet in style across the range. Shame, as the quality is clearly there, it’s just overpowered by sugar.

I found this one had more complexity to it, some interesting smoky pineapple notes and the smoked whisky flavours punched through to offset the sweetness. I thought this was a pretty pleasant drop to be honest.

Sunrise – £0.95 per 250ml can, 5%, Lidl

Vodka Lime Soda (89)

Although I found the others in the Sunrise range fairly decent, with some good fruit flavours and none of the tooth-loosening sweetness of other tinnies, on the whole they lacked the punch of the lead spirit.

This one I liked, it was fresh without being cloyingly sweet, and best of all you could taste the vodka. I certainly wouldn’t mind cracking this can open in a festival, in fact with Glasto coming up I might just do that.


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