Review: Goose Island Craft Cocktails

I don’t really like this. It tastes like a very watered-down cocktail. It tastes you’re on a bad date and shaking the ice in your glass while you desperately await a refill. Also, there is an acrid note on the finish. It smells so good and tastes so disappointing! I am sad. I expected more. Boyfriend sauntered into the kitchen to see what was up and had a sip. Said: “A soda that has been around too long.” Tasting Notes: Goose Island Craft Cocktails Whiskey Sour Appearance: A little cloudy, I bet it’s from the citrus. It’s the color of the lemon juice that comes from the plastic lemon. Then again, I would hope this was cloudy though and not clear because sour mix is…cloudy and not clear. Right? Nose: A muddied citrus. Kind of stale, like stale lemon, like lemons after a while in a drink that’s gone flat but still has lemon in it. Very lemony. The bourbon smell comes through, too. I hate to say this before I have even had a sip but this smells like…how I imagined a canned cocktail to taste. Tinny. Palate: Color me surprised! I actually do not hate this, though it certainly does not have the complexity of a Real Drink. The smell put me off more than I expected (or maybe exactly as much as I expected). But it’s pretty refreshing, actually. I tasted this on a cold and gloomy day, but I could see reaching for one of these from an ice-stuffed cooler on someone’s patio come August. Boyfriend: “Tastes like you made a drink and let it sit on the coffee table for three days and decided to drink it.” (He has done this.) Tasting Notes: Goose Island Craft Cocktails Blackberry Smash Appearance: A very pretty color. And a precise one—it is, exactly, the color of smashed blackberries. Like the color of a juicy, jammy Zinfandel during a vineyard visit. Nose: It smells, so much, like the açai flavor of Emergen-C. Kind of sweet, a little fake. But it’s also also juicy on the nose as well as the eyes. And it smells a little like they blended ripe-to-bursting cherries in it. I hope this does not taste like cough syrup. Palate: This is not as sick sweet as I had feared. It’s the best balanced of the bunch! The whiskey and the berry offset each other very well. I think this would be a solid summer choice over ice. And in fact, I’m surprised they rolled this out last fall, because this shouts summer to me. There’s a slight finish of art gallery wine but it’s not a huge problem, I happen to like art gallery wine. It tastes a little like getting to the bottom of a Manhattan where some Amarena cherry juice has settled. Boyfriend: “Cherry coke.” Final Thoughts: I feel like these need to be really cold on a hot day for them to be truly refreshing. But if you like whiskey, don’t care about cocktail complexity, and you like to travel light, these may be your thing.