Schools OUT! Summer is right around the corner, and for many of us that means family vacations, road trips, laying by the pool, and BOOZING. But before you break out for Summer you’ll want to check out this weeks review. This week we’re sampling Pocket Cocktails, a really cool way to enjoy a drink while being active and adventurous.
Pocket Cocktails are a premium dehydrated cocktail (powder) mix that comes in convenient travel size pouches and once combined with both water and spirits becomes a simple made cocktail using 100% natural flavors and no added preservatives. So this is sort of a boozy Crystal Light for people that want to drink while on the go without having to carry around a ton of stuff. The founders combined their love of adventure with previous backgrounds in bar-tending and now you have Pocket Cocktails. We received a couple flavors a few weeks back and had the chance to put them to the test this past week. Our options: an Old Fashioned and a Moscow Mule…
First Impression: Pocket Cocktails come in a convenient package that contains 4 packets (called sachets) about the size of a Kool-Aid package. The directions are printed clearly on the back of the package. You rip open the packets, pour the powder into a shaker, then use the packet again for water measurement as you fill it with water to a pre-printed line on the package. and then add that to the shaker as well. Finally you add your spirit, shake and enjoy, simple enough…
Review: So we sampled the Old Fashioned first. I was a bit skeptical at first but the flavor was pretty spot on, and I don’t get any bad taste of a sugar substitute or cheap ingredient. The one flaw I found in this one was that it was too strong for me, the strength kind of overwhelms the flavor. The directions said to fill the packet up once with water, but we actually played with it a few times and found that 2 packets or even 1 and 1/2 was a little bit better for us to enjoy the taste properly. Next we dug into the Moscow Mule. So mules are my thing. I LOVE ginger beer, so I was curious to see how this one tasted. This time, the ingredients call for 4 packets of water, 4 times as much as the old fashioned. The strength here was good, the ginger beer flavor was decent, and overall we liked this one as well. So if you put these two head to head with the real thing, you’re probably gonna be able to still choose the real thing every time but you have to remember these aren’t the real thing, they are convenient substitutes. 
Final Word: So do these taste like a quality made cocktail from your favorite bar? It’s close, we’ll give them that. It’s also extremely convenient and easy to use. Imagine having a water bottle in your backpack filled with a couple ounces of your favorite spirit and then a few packets of these ready to be mixed. They’ve got a good taste and because a part of the recipe is adding water, you can easily adjust strength to your liking. For $10 (That’s 2.50 a packet) it’s a great price point and worth trying, we’ll be looking to check out some of their other flavors soon!
Cheers,
Alex
For more information on how to purchase Pocket Cocktails be sure to visit them at www.barcountrycocktails.com
