With the advance of well-crafted cocktails, it only makes sense that premium mixers would become just as much a priority as the liquor in the cocktails. Luckily for cocktail aficionados and amateurs alike, the craft cocktail boom has made premium, unique mixers for your home bar more readily available.
Premium craft mixers are essential for maintaining the quality of craft cocktails. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for, and that is especially true in the mixer aisle. The cheap mixers and sodas that crowd supermarket shelves are filled with synthetic sweeteners and artificial ingredients that you can’t pronounce. Take sour mix, for example, meant to be a delicious mix of citrus, sugar, and water, most conventional sour mixes have a long list of science-experiment sounding ingredients--hardly the classic, simple cocktail you were probably going for. If you really want a cocktail worthy of the craft, then a premium mixer is the way to go.
Cocktail mixers now come in a range of flavors, from Quince & Apple cocktail syrups, to Fever Tree and Boylan artisan sodas.
Powell & Mahoney, one of the first companies to make a line of craft cocktail mixers, has vintage classic flavors such as Margarita and Mojito to funky flavors like Bloody Mary Sriracha and Blood Orange.
Walker Feed Co. mixers are made with fresh-squeezed juices and are lower in sodium, sugar, and calories than most cocktail mixers.
Another great option for sprucing up your cocktails is shrubs, a vinegar-based colonial beverage that naturally sweetens and flavors anything from lemonade to vodka soda. Tait Farm Foods has a line of shrubs with delicious, naturally made flavors like raspberry, ginger, and lime to enhance your drinks.
Once you catch the bug for a well-crafted cocktail, it will be hard to go back to the standard mixers!