RTD margs are set to be all the rage this summer. But which cans are worth rifling through the chilly bin for?

It’s apparently the world’s most popular cocktail, so it was only a matter of time before someone started bunging margaritas in cans. And if overseas trends are anything to go by, Aotearoa could be heading straight for a margarita summer.

But which canned marg to choose? With 20-plus varieties available in all manner of flavours (watermelon, charred pineapple, chilli, mango, coconut, raspberry, to name just a few), for practicality and HR reasons we decided to limit our tasting to each brand’s original, unadulterated version. 

A traditional margarita, if you’re wondering, is made with tequila, triple sec (orange liqueur) and lime juice (and sometimes a simple sugar syrup). Its exact origins are murky, but it’s generally agreed the margarita was invented somewhere in Mexico in the 1930s or 40s.

Some of the following drinks aped the original pretty well, while others – despite being for the most part somewhat drinkable – did not. The seven drinks in our lineup were tasted blind, having been poured from their cans into glasses, by seven Spinoffers. Each taster gave each marg a mark out of 10, which we averaged out to get the final scores. Here’s how they fared, starting from the least loved of the bunch.

7) Pals Classic Margarita

5.8%

10 x 250ml, $28-$33 from liquor stores

3.8/10

Pouring clear and assertively effervescent, this was quickly identified as Pals by several tasters. “It has the scent of a taste and then nothing,” noted Mad Chapman. “If someone said ‘do you want a margarita?’ then gave me that, I’d be pissed.” Hayden Donnell detected “floral notes on the nose” but thought “the tongue is weird”, while Sophie Albornett said “I’m getting the astringency of the lime but no lime taste.” Alice Neville picked up a “fake sugar” taste, and Eli Rivera was disquieted by a lingering unpleasant aftertaste. 

6) Alba Original Sparkling Margarita

5.9%

6 x 250ml, $23; 10 x 250ml, $32-$34 from liquor stores

4.6/10

Alba apparently “commands 72% of New Zealand’s tequila RTD category” but our tasters were not sold. Sophie described it as “another imposter”, then declared she was apathetic: “You’re giving me nothing.” Calum Henderson, meanwhile, found it to be “ghostly and thin”. “I’ve long thought you could make a lot of money inventing 5% ABV water and this is as close as I’ve come to seeing that vision realised,” he added. “Pretty mild,” noted Eli, damning with faint praise. “Nice for hanging out with school mums.” Henry was more generous in his assessment, appreciating that it was “less candy-ish” than some of the others. “It kind of felt like there was a better drink hidden underneath there somewhere just wanting to get out.”

5) Olmeca Altos Margarita Lime

5%

4 x 300ml, $18-$21 from liquor stores

5.1/10

Eli appreciated that this offering from a bona fide tequila brand “smells like a margarita and tastes like a margarita”. “If this was handed to me at a barbecue, I’d just gulp it.” Mad agreed: “For some reason its genuine inoffensiveness has charmed me,” she mused, taking another sip. “Easily identifiable as a marg, if overly sweet and lacking complexity,” noted Calum. Less appreciative were Sophie, who didn’t appreciate the “RTD aftertaste”, and Hayden, who reckoned the flavour was akin to “sugar and chemicals”. He did concede that “if you want to efficiently take the edge off a social occasion, this is your drink”.

4) Rita’s Classic Margarita

7%

4 x 250ml, $30 from mighty-mighty.co.nz

5.9/10

This lime-forward offering was broadly appreciated, though Mad reckoned it “would be quite hard to drink more than one” – not necessarily a bad thing? “I respect it for its sourness,” said Hayden, while Calum and Alice felt the high zing factor masked the tequila taste. Henry, meanwhile, praised the “non-ethanol taste – it tastes more like a spirit”.

3) Whitebox Squeezy’s Margarita

19%

100ml, $10 from selected liquor stores (or 4 x 100ml, $38.95 from Moore Wilson’s; 12 x 100ml, $120 from mineral.co.nz and easytiger.co.nz)

6.1/10

This potent number hails from Scotland (the Mexico of Britain, in a way) and comes in the cutest wee can you’ve ever seen. The tasters were not privy to the adorability of Squeezy the frog, however, so judged this beverage on its merits alone – and it was polarising. On taking a sniff, Hayden was consumed by rage. “Jesus Christ that smells like pure garbage!” he bellowed, finishing with a hearty “fuck you”. He mellowed upon tasting the beverage, however, noting “the garbagey smell disappears and it’s a delicious sugary syrup… I’m not having an unenjoyable time, but I resent it on a number of levels.” We all felt it tasted better than it smelled, and there was no escaping the punchy ABV. “It’s giving me a warmth,” said Alice. “This feels dangerous in a fun way,” noted Calum. “Holy moly! She’s strong,” said Eli. “Which I don’t mind. Really gets ya in the gills.”

2) Jose Cuervo Sparkling Margarita

4.2%

4 x 330ml, $19 from most liquor stores

6.3/10

This one from the world’s biggest-selling tequila brand had what Hayden described as a “sniff-to-taste discrepancy”, or, in Eli’s words, “it smells like a margarita but doesn’t taste like one”. What it did taste like was Lift, she reckoned. That wasn’t a negative for some tasters, with Calum describing the drink as “lemonadey, moreish and quenching”. Mad agreed, saying “it would be delightful on a hot summer’s day”. Calum felt the tequila “revealed more of itself by the last sip”, and Henry appreciated its slight saltiness, a nod to the salt on the rim of a glass of a real margarita.

1) Mighty Mighty Classic Margarita

14.2%

4 x 125ml, $30 from mightymighty.co.nz

8.9/10

All the tasters were enamoured with this delightful offering from Auckland-based craft cocktail company Mighty Mighty (which also makes Rita’s, our fourth-placing marg, and a Tommy’s margarita that we didn’t taste on account of our strict classics-only criteria). We didn’t know it was housed in an adorable teeny can similar to Squeezy’s, but we didn’t need aesthetics to sway us – the marg within was that good. “That would trick me,” said Mad. “That’s like a real one,” agreed Alice, “salty and yum and limey.” Sophie reckoned “the others were the idea of a margarita, where this is more like encapsulating and being the margarita”. Eli, who brought some genuine Latina cred to the tasting, summed it up: “Take me to the beach, give me a taco,” she uttered appreciatively. “Well done to these guys.”