Review: Southern Comfort Sweet Tea and Hurricane Cocktails

Let's be frank. Southern Comfort has a difficult reputation. Everyone I know has a story involving the peach-flavored liqueur, and it usually ends up with a blackout or someone's head being shaved against their will.

Hey, it's party booze. Nothin' wrong with that.

SoCo is expanding its little empire with the craze du jour -- premixed cocktails. As with many of these, no doctoring is intended. You just fill a glass with ice, pour in the stuff, and drink away.

Two flavors are launching, and we got to try a handle of each. Both are 30 proof and come in 1.75 liter bottles.

Southern Comfort Sweet Tea Cocktail is meant to evoke the flavors of sweet tea, a natural fit considering SoCo's southern roots. The peachiness of SoCo is upfront here, a good slug of that apricot-like, sweet peach, with a backbone of tea. I don't want to undersell it: It's got a ton of peach flavor to it, which may be a turn-off for you if you're looking for an authentic tea character. Ultimately I far prefer something like Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka with water and ice than this, but in a pinch it'll do. Try adding a little water to cut down on the overpowering peach character. B-

Southern Comfort Hurricane Cocktail has an authentic, day-glo red color, but again it's so peachy you won't be reminded of those slurries served in every quickie-mart in New Orleans. Maybe that's a good thing, dunno. Imagine SoCo mixed with a can of Big Red and you'll have a sense of what drinking this concoction is like. Some cherry, some orange. Lots of peach, even more sweetness. Again, this all improves if you let the ice melt a lot or add water, but this one's a bit tougher to recommend. C

$20 each per 1.75-liter bottle / southerncomfort.com

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