Drinks on a train

I love a margarita and was really hopeful when I looked at the ingredients of this drink, it had actual Cointreau and real lime juice, which was very promising.  On the nose you get a delicious lime zest hit, which got me excited as often you don't get real lime in these beverages (it doesn't stay fresh sadly). The taste is proper lime, with a refreshing sourness. Strangely enough it's a still drink, which most of these premixed cans aren't, which makes it feel more grown up. You also get a hint of orange, but sadly not much actual tequila.  This was going pretty good until the aftertaste, which is an incredible punch of artificial sweetener. It's overpowering and lingers on the tongue. I suppose this is what makes it skinny, but it's also what takes a pretty good drink and makes it average. Score: 3/5 Price: £

I’ve sung the praises of Long Flint before so I won’t go into it again, see my Paloma post to read a little more. The first thing that strikes you about this Negroni ASDFASDs is the depth of colour, it looks purple in a lively an evocative way that still evokes nature. This branding and vivid colour give you a feeling that this is a drink of class and you’re not dissapointed on opening it. On opening I got floral note on the nose with a smell of hibiscus and hints of cranberries. The taste starts with a light fruity sourness and ends with a nice balanced bitterness that lingers on the tongue. The length of the bitterness is what makes this a really interesting beverage: not the sudden and short punch of tonic, it evokes the negroni of it’s name, but as the bottle says a much lighter version, which is helped by the delicate carbonation. The bitterness lingers making this drink a more serious beverage - I can imagine myself drinking this as an aperatif, sitting in a sun soaked p...

It is not often that one has to reassess how one looks at and scores a category, but every once in a while you’ll have a coffee or beer, watch a new film or tv show, and think, oh shit, what I was consuming before wasn’t that great. This was the experience I recently had at Craft Beer Rising when I encountered Long Flint, who make premixed drinks with craft spirits. I was blown away by the depth, complexity and balance of these drinks, they’ve redefined the category for me, setting a new bar. I was thinking of changing the rating system just because of them, and whilst I haven’t done that they do deserve extra credit for raising the bar in the premixed drink sector. I know I originally said I’d only review what you can get at a supermarket or in a train station, but since you can buy these on Amazon I feel it’s within my remit. Anyways enough chat, let’s get onto the drink. What struck me first about the Paloma is the freshness, I have no idea how they’ve done it but it really does...