We try the Jack & Coke canned cocktail to see if it’s any better than mixing one yourself

We love the convenience of a canned cocktail, but does it taste as good?

Canned cocktails are great because they take all of the work out of making delicious cocktails like hard lemonades and sours and provide the perfect serving size of a tasty alcoholic beverage. Still, some of the simpler cocktails, like Jack and Coke, are probably just easier to make at home. All you have to do in this example is pour some Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey into some cola and voila! It’s done.

And yet, we couldn’t help but be curious about the newly released canned “Jack & Coke”. It is, after all, the first canned cocktail containing Coca-Cola, and it was causing a stir all over Twitter. We had to wonder, how does a canned version of this beloved cocktail compare to a hand-mixed version?

The alcohol content is seven percent, which is comparable to most highballs and other cocktails: more than a beer, but less than a “strong”, as high-alcohol canned chuhai (shochu distilled liquor highballs) are known in Japan. The design of the can was simple, but fitting the impactful impression of these two drinks.

To have something to compare the cocktail to, we prepared a bottle of original Coca-Cola and a bottle of Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey, which is the standard kind of Jack used in a Jack & Coke, and the same kind used in the canned version.

The standard ratio of Jack to Coke is one to three, so that’s how we prepared our handmade cocktail, and to keep the experience similar to the canned version, we omitted the ice.

The flavor, of course, was the standard flavor we’re used to. Delicious.

Next, we poured the canned Jack & Coke into a glass…

And immediately took a sip.

Our review? Although the canned version had a slightly stronger aroma, they both honestly tasted about the same, and when we had a Jack & Coke fan taste it, they agreed that there was no difference. The canned cocktail, impressively, maintained the sweet and smoky flavor of the Jack Daniels.

And yet, still, somehow…we all agreed that for some reason the canned version was slightly better. Our first thought was that there was a small difference between how refreshing each one was. One thing that became clear the more we tasted them was that the can somehow managed to maintain the carbonation of the cola despite the addition of alcohol, while our home-mixed version appeared to have lost a bit of the bubbliness we expect. This allowed the Jack Daniels to stand out more in the canned version.

Of course, we aren’t professional bartenders, so perhaps there’s a method we don’t know about for mixing a Jack & Coke without losing some of the carbonation. But since we don’t have that skill or the time to learn it, we’d have to say that we’d probably be inclined to pick the canned cocktail over mixing our own.

If we had to find any fault with it at all, it might be that the strong Jack Daniels aroma could be misleading about the strength of the alcohol, but honestly, we don’t really mind that much. For the quality it offers, and the ease and price with which you can get your hands on it, the Jack Daniels & Coca-Cola canned cocktail is almost revolutionary. If you’re a Jack & Coke fan, definitely check it out.

Canned cocktails have really come a long way. This makes us excited to try the upcoming Premium Highball Hakushu canned cocktail, which is made with Suntory Hakushu whisky and sounds utterly delicious.

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