commands 72% of New Zealand\u2019s tequila RTD category<\/a>\u201d but our tasters were not sold. Sophie described it as \u201canother imposter\u201d, then declared she was apathetic: \u201cYou\u2019re giving me nothing.\u201d Calum Henderson, meanwhile, found it to be \u201cghostly and thin\u201d. \u201cI\u2019ve long thought you could make a lot of money inventing 5% ABV water and this is as close as I\u2019ve come to seeing that vision realised,\u201d he added. \u201cPretty mild,\u201d noted Eli, damning with faint praise. \u201cNice for hanging out with school mums.\u201d Henry was more generous in his assessment, appreciating that it was \u201cless candy-ish\u201d than some of the others. \u201cIt kind of felt like there was a better drink hidden underneath there somewhere just wanting to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Three](\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\")
The bottom three (Image: Emily Wong\/The Spinoff)
\n5) Olmeca Altos Margarita Lime<\/p>\n
5%<\/p>\n
4 x 300ml, $18-$21 from liquor stores<\/p>\n
5.1\/10<\/p>\n
Eli appreciated that this offering from a bona fide tequila brand \u201csmells like a margarita and tastes like a margarita\u201d. \u201cIf this was handed to me at a barbecue, I\u2019d just gulp it.\u201d Mad agreed: \u201cFor some reason its genuine inoffensiveness has charmed me,\u201d she mused, taking another sip. \u201cEasily identifiable as a marg, if overly sweet and lacking complexity,\u201d noted Calum. Less appreciative were Sophie, who didn\u2019t appreciate the \u201cRTD aftertaste\u201d, and Hayden, who reckoned the flavour was akin to \u201csugar and chemicals\u201d. He did concede that \u201cif you want to efficiently take the edge off a social occasion, this is your drink\u201d.<\/p>\n
4) Rita\u2019s Classic Margarita<\/p>\n
7%<\/p>\n
4 x 250ml, $30 from mighty-mighty.co.nz<\/p>\n
5.9\/10<\/p>\n
This lime-forward offering was broadly appreciated, though Mad reckoned it \u201cwould be quite hard to drink more than one\u201d \u2013\u00a0not necessarily a bad thing? \u201cI respect it for its sourness,\u201d said Hayden, while Calum and Alice felt the high zing factor masked the tequila taste. Henry, meanwhile, praised the \u201cnon-ethanol taste \u2013\u00a0it tastes more like a spirit\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pretty decent (Image: Emily Wong\/The Spinoff)
\n3) Whitebox Squeezy\u2019s Margarita<\/p>\n
19%<\/p>\n
100ml, $10 from selected liquor stores (or 4 x 100ml, $38.95 from Moore Wilson\u2019s; 12 x 100ml, $120 from mineral.co.nz and easytiger.co.nz)<\/p>\n
6.1\/10<\/p>\n
This potent number hails from Scotland (the Mexico of Britain, in a way) and comes in the cutest wee can you\u2019ve ever seen. The tasters were not privy to the adorability of Squeezy the frog, however, so judged this beverage on its merits alone \u2013 and it was polarising. On taking a sniff, Hayden was consumed by rage. \u201cJesus Christ that smells like pure garbage!\u201d he bellowed, finishing with a hearty \u201cfuck you\u201d. He mellowed upon tasting the beverage, however, noting \u201cthe garbagey smell disappears and it\u2019s a delicious sugary syrup\u2026 I\u2019m not having an unenjoyable time, but I resent it on a number of levels.\u201d We all felt it tasted better than it smelled, and there was no escaping the punchy ABV. \u201cIt\u2019s giving me a warmth,\u201d said Alice. \u201cThis feels dangerous in a fun way,\u201d noted Calum. \u201cHoly moly! She\u2019s strong,\u201d said Eli. \u201cWhich I don\u2019t mind. Really gets ya in the gills.\u201d<\/p>\n
The top two. (Image: Emily Wong\/The Spinoff)
\n2) Jose Cuervo Sparkling Margarita<\/p>\n
4.2%<\/p>\n
4 x 330ml, $19 from most liquor stores<\/p>\n
6.3\/10<\/p>\n
This one from the world\u2019s biggest-selling tequila brand had what Hayden described as a \u201csniff-to-taste discrepancy\u201d, or, in Eli\u2019s words, \u201cit smells like a margarita but doesn\u2019t taste like one\u201d. What it did taste like was Lift, she reckoned. That wasn\u2019t a negative for some tasters, with Calum describing the drink as \u201clemonadey, moreish and quenching\u201d. Mad agreed, saying \u201cit would be delightful on a hot summer\u2019s day\u201d. Calum felt the tequila \u201crevealed more of itself by the last sip\u201d, and Henry appreciated its slight saltiness, a nod to the salt on the rim of a glass of a real margarita.<\/p>\n
1) Mighty Mighty Classic Margarita<\/p>\n
14.2%<\/p>\n
4 x 125ml, $30 from mightymighty.co.nz<\/p>\n
8.9\/10<\/p>\n
All the tasters were enamoured with this delightful offering from Auckland-based craft cocktail company Mighty Mighty (which also makes Rita\u2019s, our fourth-placing marg, and a Tommy\u2019s margarita<\/a> that we didn\u2019t taste on account of our strict classics-only criteria). We didn\u2019t know it was housed in an adorable teeny can similar to Squeezy\u2019s, but we didn\u2019t need aesthetics to sway us \u2013 the marg within was that good. \u201cThat would trick me,\u201d said Mad. \u201cThat\u2019s like a real one,\u201d agreed Alice, \u201csalty and yum and limey.\u201d Sophie reckoned \u201cthe others were the idea of a margarita, where this is more like encapsulating and being the margarita\u201d. Eli, who brought some genuine Latina cred to the tasting, summed it up: \u201cTake me to the beach, give me a taco,\u201d she uttered appreciatively. \u201cWell done to these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RTD margs are set to be all the rage this summer. But which cans are worth rifling through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[20784,156,141,111,139,69,28228,171568],"class_list":["post-618204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alcohol","tag-entertainment","tag-kai","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ranking","tag-rtd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}