What’s old is new again—especially when it comes with a sleek rebranding. Blush wine was passé until it became rosé, and now, another Y2k-era drink is destined for a comeback: spiked lemonade. (You, know…like the Mike’s of yore.) The drink has always risen in popularity during the summer months, but it’s poised to become the go-to bev at every cookout this year, as a wave of newcomers help it shed its syrupy, sad-malt-beer reputation.
When spiked seltzers took off in 2018, with them came a surge in canned, ready-to-drink cocktails across the board. Brands started pumping out new flavors to keep people’s interest—all boozy, most fizzy—and naturally, they looked to iterate on crowd-pleasers. Is there anything more quintessentially summer than lemonade? It’s no wonder the arguable king of hard seltzers, White Claw, just launched REFRSHR, a vowel-averse-yet-all-caps-flavor-obsessed line of boozy lemonades. (In fact, it makes even more sense when you consider its parent company, Mark Anthony Brands International, also owns the OG, Mike’s Hard Lemonade.)
Not content with a basic spiked lemonade, all four flavors have their own “yes, and…” moment: a lemon flavor with Calamansi (a Japanese citrus), blood orange lemonade with a hint of black raspberry, blackberry lemonade with a touch of cherry and strawberry lemonade with a kiss of kiwi.
