The Friendzone of Drinks: Things That Sound Good but Aren't

Some drinks have incredible marketing. Beautiful photos. Enticing descriptions. Celebrity endorsements. And then you taste them and realize you have been catfished by a beverage.

Flavored Vodka (Most of It)

Whipped cream vodka. Birthday cake vodka. Marshmallow vodka. These taste like someone liquefied a candle from Bath & Body Works. The concept is fun. The execution is a chemistry experiment. Real flavored vodkas — like a quality cucumber vodka — use actual ingredients. The mass-market ones use artificial flavoring that tastes like the idea of a flavor, not the flavor itself.

Premade Margarita Mix

Neon green. Viscously sweet. Contains approximately zero percent actual lime juice. A margarita made with this mix tastes nothing like a margarita. It tastes like a lime-flavored sugar bomb. Real lime juice, tequila, and a little agave or Cointreau. That is a margarita. Everything else is cosplay.

"Skinny" Cocktails

The calorie-conscious cocktail trend created a category of drinks that solved a problem nobody actually had by removing everything that made cocktails taste good. A skinny margarita with zero sweetener and diet mixer tastes like tequila and sadness. A properly made cocktail with real ingredients is not a calorie bomb. The Bee's Knees from Deko Cocktails is made with organic honey and real citrus. It is not "skinny." It is balanced. There is a difference.

Anything That Comes in a Bucket

If your drink is served in a vessel larger than your head, with six straws and a sparkler, it is not a cocktail. It is a spectacle. And it almost certainly tastes like melted ice with a vague hint of fruit and an aggressive amount of well spirits.

The Espresso Martini (At Most Places)

A great espresso martini is a genuine pleasure — rich, caffeinated, slightly bitter. But most bars make them with stale espresso, too much vodka, and Kahlua that has been open since 2019. The gap between a good espresso martini and a bad one is bigger than in almost any other cocktail. If you are going to order one, go to a place that takes it seriously.

The Lesson

A drink's reputation is not its reality. The best drinks are often the simplest — three or four real ingredients, properly balanced. The worst drinks are the ones that substitute marketing for quality. Trust your palate, not the label.