Ready-to-drink cocktails are showing up everywhere these days, and buzzbox (with a lowercase “b” to keep it casual) is a new company devoted to providing premium cocktails made without preservatives, additives, or artificial colors or flavors and packaged in eco-friendly boxes that look somewhat like — well, actually exactly like — my children’s juice boxes. You’re going to want to be careful where you chill them if you have kids in the house because the 12% alcohol content appears in small letters on what otherwise looks like a children’s sipper.

On the other hand, if you want to bring a RTD margarita with you camping, this lightweight container is perfect. The flavors available from buzzbox include Perfect Margarita, Vodka Lemonade, Long Island, Whiskey Lemonade, Cuban Mojito, Classic Cosmo, Hurricane, Classic Greyhound, and Bloody Mary. Today we are trying the Perfect Margarita, made, the box explains, with “premium tequila, handcrafted triple sec, natural lime & orange juices.” Let’s give it a try.

The box comes with a sippy straw that you punch through the top of the box, which means you can’t really smell the margarita. Tasting it, there’s no sense of fresh fruit juice or premium tequila. Instead, it tastes like lime juice from concentrate mixed with nondescript alcohol, a bit of a citric burn, light sweetness, and a slight chemical note. To the margarita’s credit, it isn’t cloyingly sweet like RTD expressions often are, but there is no mistaking that this is a pre-mixed beverage and not a hand-mixed cocktail. I like the idea of serving a margarita in an eco-friendly container that is light and convenient, but this one could have been better.

12% abv.

C+ / $14 per four-pack of 200 ml boxes / buzzbox.com

Buzzbox Perfect Margarita

$14

6

Rating

6.0/10