The new 808 Luxury Fused Spirit drinks sound appealing, but fall way short of their packaging's promises.  They aren't "luxurious" at all.  The package makes them look like a hip fun youthful club-type drink for at home enjoyment.  It has sort of an upscale urban design, like something you could envision a rapper drinking. The ingredients listed include things like cognac, premium vodka, fruit liqueurs, caffeine and guarana.  I expected sort of Red Bull meets Grey Goose with a splash of Alize.  What is in the bottle is more like Kool Aid with too much sugar in it mixed with Red Bull mixed with cheap artificial fruit flavors mixed with rot gut vodka.  I should have known when the label listed the cognac component as "French Cognac" that it wasn't made for people that know anything about premium liquor.  All Cognac is from the Cognac region of France, otherwise it's just brandy.  But then I figured that maybe they were trying to appeal to a market that isn't your typical liquor lovers, the kind of people that buy pre-mixed fruity drinks in aluminum bottles maybe aren't necessarily the same people who sip snifters of cognac.  So I shrugged that initial red flag off and popped the cap.  It smelled strongly of that metallic fruity smell of energy drink.  That smell's often really strong with even the slightest bit of energy drink in a mix, so I forged on and tasted them. The alchohol taste when it cut through the fake fruit syrupyness was jagged and sharp.  It had nothing in common with the flavors I would expect from even cheap cognac or mid-level vodka.  Definitely not anything in there I would have described as "Premium vodka" like the package did.  I tried the Apple Amp, Fruit Blast, and Berry Slam flavors.  I still have the Mango Beat flavor in my fridge and am working up the courage to give it a try.  Of the three I attempted, the apple was the worst.  It was so bad that neither me nor my husband could stand to finish a bottle of it.  The fruit blast was sort of fruit punchy and awful, but between the two of us, we did finish the bottle.  The berry slam was the best of the three, but I think poorly named.  It tasted primarily like grape to me.  Actually like imitation grape like grape soda or grape kool-aid.  It tasted exactly like you would imagine the color purple tasting.  It was way too bad to ever drink again, but I didn't hate it too much to finish it myself.  I definitely don't recommend 808 at all.  I can't imagine anyone old enough to drink enjoying this melted jolly rancers in energy drink with a splash of bottom shelf liquor mixture.

redstarr

Fort Smith, AR