Hard Seltzers and Canned Cocktails with a High ABV

January 2023 has arrived, and many of our friends and family are making resolutions to quit drinking for a month or, gasp, even longer. Good for them. New year, new them. We get it. But dry January isn’t for everyone. Some of us enjoy the occasional cocktail and keep sobriety well out of our list of resolutions. That’s fine, too. For those who are still drinking this January, we’ve decided to compile a little celebratory list of hard seltzers and canned cocktails with an alcohol content of 8% or above… because why not?

Our only warning: these drinks might get you blitzed if you’re not careful. These beverages have a lot of alcohol. For comparison, the average glass of wine has an ABV of 10%. However, the serving size of wine is a 5 oz glass. As these drinks have a serving size of a 12 oz can, you’re getting roughly the equivalent of two glasses of wine per can of an 8% ABV alcoholic beverage. And many of these drinks have an ABV well above 8%. Without further ado, here are five nationally distributed hard seltzer and canned cocktail brands offering drinks with an alcohol content of 8% ABV or above.

Cutwater Spirits Canned Cocktails

Image source: https://www.cutwaterspirits.com

Alcohol content: up to 14% ABV

We’ll start with the brand with the biggest range of alcohol content per cocktail. Cutwater Spirits is a brand that’s been around since 2006. However, they only started making canned cocktails in the 2010s. The brand has several canned cocktails with an ABV of 5%-7%. Yet, nearly half of Cutwater’s 25 cocktails are 8% ABV or higher. Cutwater Spirits makes its cocktails from its very own lines of vodka, rum, tequila, whisky, and gin.

The Cutwater Spirits Canned Cocktail with the highest ABV is the White Russian, with an ABV of 14%. This is followed closely by the Cutwater Spirits Long Island at 13.2% ABV. The Long Island contains Cutwater Rum, Cutwater Vodka, and Cutwater Gin. The Long Island has an ABV of 13.2% and comes in a 12 oz can. You may be thinking… wait, a Long Island at a bar has an ABV of 20%. So, this is way less than that, right? Nope. A Long Island at a bar is 5.5 oz of liquid (and ice). So, if you drink all 12 oz of the Cutwater Spirits Long Island, you’ll be drinking more than the equivalent of a bar-made Long Island.

Image source: BevNet Press Release

The Finish Long Drink Strong Citrus

Alcohol Content: 8.5% ABV

The Long Drink is a popular cocktail in Finland today, but it dates back to just after World War 2. Still recovering from the Second World War, the Finnish government found itself in a bind during the 1952 Summer Games as it didn’t have enough drinks to serve to the attendees of the games. To solve this problem, the Finish Government invented the Long Drink Cocktail. The cocktail contains gin, grapefruit juice, and juniper berry. The Long Drink Company brought the cocktail over to the United States in 2018, and the Long Drink has been growing in popularity stateside ever since. The Finnish Long Drink comes in four varieties, Traditional, Zero Sugar, Cranberry, and Strong Citrus. The Strong Citrus variety offers the same flavor as the traditional cocktail with a whole lot more alcohol. The alcohol content of the Strong Citrus is 8.5% ABV, and the drink comes in a 12 oz serving.

Bud Light Platinum Seltzer, White Claw Surge, and Truly Extra

Image source: PR Newswire

Alcohol content: 8% ABV

While the majority of hard seltzers keep a lower ABV of 4%-6%, three of the top-selling hard seltzer brands offer a high-ABV line of flavors. These flavor lines are Bud Light Platinum Seltzer, White Claw Surge, and Truly Extra, each of which have an ABV of 8%. Bud Light Seltzer was the first brand to offer this. In September 2020, Bud Light released an 8% ABV Platinum Seltzer. These hard seltzers came in three flavors, Wild Berry, Citrus, and Blood Orange. These drinks have 5 grams of carbs and 3 grams of sugar, which is slightly higher than Bud Light Seltzer’s lower ABV offerings (but by no means high). Truly and White Claw Hard Seltzer launched their own 8% ABV lines close to the same time in 2021 (March and April, respectively). White Claw Surge has two flavors, Blood Orange and Cranberry. Truly Extra revamped and replaced its two original flavors in 2022, now offering new flavors, Pineapple Orange and Berry Blast.

Want to find your perfect hard seltzer or canned cocktail? Try our new Seltzer Finder! You can search by flavor, ABV, carbs, and more to discover your ideal beverage.