This is a review of alcoholic beverages, and you must be of legal age in your country to be able to consume alcoholic beverages!
I am pretty sure if you have read the blog for any length of time you already know my love for wine and whatnot, so there is no reason for me to give you a long introduction! I recently got the chance to review a different sort of wine from Bar 41. These are not typical wines because they are around 18% by volume and they are flavored like your favorite cocktails such as Cosmopolitan, Moscow Mule, Margarita, and Mojito (with a few other varieties that they are working on such as Bloody Mary, Dirty Martini , and Mai Tai – which I want to try!) They are essentially a wine cocktail!
The story behind Bar 41 is that those bars and restaurants with what is known in California as a type 41 license for beer and wine couldn’t offer cocktails or they had to make them with low volume sake or sochu/soju which makes for a sub standard cocktail drink. With the introduction of Bar 41 however, they are able to offer a drink that likely even tastes better than the originals
I received the 4 flavors that I first mentioned. 2 of them I had tried the “real” version of before, one david had and one neither one of us had tried. As per usual the best way to do reviews with multiple flavors is just to break them down and tell you about them and what I/we thought of them!
First up, I will start with Bar 41 Cosmopolitan , since you know it is all fruity and of course kind of pink (which we know I like) I had only ever had a Cosmopolitan maybe one other time when David and I were staying with my parents a few years back and we went on a late night trip to longhorn, sat at the bar and I ordered it an a steak! I really liked it but we don’t typically stray from certain drinks when we are buying mixes and whatnot! The Cosmopolitan had the vodka-esque taste going for it with the cranberry and even the orange bitters going on for it! It was VERY easy to drink and I think I finished the majority of it in one evening/night and had a killer hangover the next day because I forgot that the alcohol content = I RARELY get hungover!
My Favorite Mixed drink has long been a Margarita! I have had several varieties while out and about , and they are typically something we make at home as well. .. but it has been a long time since i have made any! The Bar 41 Margarita was probably right up there with the Cosmopolitan to me I actually drank it as shots in my salt shot glasses and it was awesome! You get a def. feel that there is tequila involved- which tequila is something that several of my relatives that drink have gotten sick off of in the past so they won’t drink it… then you have all the lemon and lime and the sweetness that they bring in from an agavae nectar taste as well! I am hoping to convince those non tequila family members into trying this one and promise they won’t know the difference- except they might not be as sick
I will admit that I have never like a mojito, on the principle that I thought it was ALL minty and I love peppermints but I don’t go for mixing mints with things- I even hate peppermint patties! However, no one had ever explained the taste to me so… I just didn’t know! I decided to go ahead and try the Bar 41 Mojito after I read that it has more of a citrus based taste- and I rather enjoyed it. Of course David loves mojitos and I couldn’t get him to really tell me any opinion between this one and a real one but I am sure that like the other varieties that it is comparable! I also didn’t realize that Mojito is rum based- and I generally like rum based drinks so.. even better! I love when reviews teach me things I didn’t know!
Last up is the Bar 41 Moscow Mule. …which is a drink that I had heard of but had never ever tried and didn’t really know what it was. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it is very gingery- which is something that I have only recently discovered that I really like when it comes to drinking alcohol- I mean I don’t know why I would be surprised there- I love ginger ale! It is also vodka based which I didn’t know – and generally I do have a bottle of that laying around somewhere another! (back in the college days I used to have a bottle in my sock drawer- ahh memories lol) Now- I can’t really make up my mind on this one. I do like it- but it seems like the more you drink it the better it gets.. it kinda starts off a bit meh for me- but then it gets better as I go along!
I loved these drinks , and I believe me if you didn’t KNOW beforehand that they didn’t have the “real thing” in them you would likely NOT know the difference. I like that I got to try several awesome blends and I didn’t have to buy all the different alcohols, mixes, and other ingredients- they were already mixed perfectly right there in the bottle! I hope that in the future I get to try more of the Bar 41 Wine Cocktail line!
