The Best Hard Seltzer Brands You’ll Actually Want to Drink

If you’ve been to a social gathering in the last couple of years, you would have noticed the fridge is filled with a new type of alcohol: hard seltzer. Actually, if you’ve been anywhere lately — a grocery store, bar, corner store — you’ll know that hard seltzer isn’t just having a moment: It’s a full-on beverage takeover. And despite the subsequent rise of RTD canned cocktails as another beer alternative, the hard seltzer explosion continues unimpeded.

By 2032, the hard seltzer market is expected to reach $65.8 billion — up considerably from 2019’s $4.4 billion total. With that kind of market saturation, it can be hard to tell the good hard seltzer brands from the bad. Which is why we’ve tried a ton of them to bring you the hard seltzer brands worth the fridge space.

To learn more about our testing methodology and how we evaluate products, head here.

Best Overall Hard Seltzer Brand: High Noon

Drizly

Best Overall Hard Seltzer Brand

High Noon

Specs

Tasting Notes	Thanks to real juice and real vodka, these taste excellent and decidedly not fake
Calories	100
ABV	4.5%

• $22.99 at Total Wine

Like Volley, High Noon is a seltzer mixed with a spirit, in this case, vodka. Because it’s made with vodka, High Noon is noticeably cleaner in taste, as if you’re drinking actual seltzer. The addition of real fruit juice makes this one of the most refreshing and best-tasting hard seltzers on this list. High Noon also recently released a version made with tequila instead of vodka, if you’re more of a ranch water fan.

Topo Chico Hard Seltzer

Drizly

Topo Chico Hard Seltzer

Specs

Tasting Notes	These actually taste like the fruit they claim to taste like, which is a welcome change compared to others
Calories	100
ABV	4.7%

• $16.99 at Total Wine

Topo Chico is best known for its sparkling mineral water, a cult favorite in the category. It only made sense when Topo Chico announced it would get into hard seltzers. It manages to retain the mineral water flavor that made Topo Chico famous while adding refreshing flavors like strawberry guava and lemon-lime to the mix. This is the hard seltzer you give people who are skeptical about hard seltzers.

Nütrl

Total Wine

Nütrl

Specs

Tasting Notes	One of the crispest and most flavorful options out there thanks to its simple ingredient list
Calories	100
ABV	4.5%

• $20.00 at Total Wine

Nütrl is very careful not to brand its beverage as a hard seltzer — it’s a vodka seltzer — with the idea being that it’s a more premium experience. And the brand isn’t wrong. It’s a low-cal, low-ABV mix of vodka, seltzer and actual fruit juice, and it’s up there with High Noon as one of the tastiest and most refreshing hard seltzers (sorry, vodka seltzers) out there.

Amass

Amass

Amass

Specs

Tasting Notes	Less fruity and more earthy
Calories	110
ABV	5%

• $66.99 at Caskers

Amass is known for its botanicals-first approach to spirit making, like with its gin and vodka, and it brought that same mindset when it came to making hard seltzers. Just a few ingredients you can expect include extracts of star anise, jasmine and hibiscus, making these taste like mixologist-made cocktails instead of straightforward hard seltzers.

Lunar

Total Wine

Lunar

Specs

Tasting Notes	Real fruit makes for a less "fake" taste you might find elsewhere
Calories	130
ABV	4.5 – 4.9%

• $8.00 at Total Wine

The hard seltzer aisle is dominated by the same flavors — how many cherry hard seltzers can one person want? Lunar, an Asian-American-founded hard seltzer brand, brings some finesse to hard seltzer by utilizing flavors that are predominant in Asian cultures (think yuzu and lychee). Lunar is made with real fruit juices, and if you’re lucky, you can grab one of their collaboration hard seltzers, which really solidifies the brand’s place on this list.

Volley

Volley

Volley

Specs

Tasting Notes	Tequila-dominant with just enough fruit or ginger to make it a pleasant experience
Calories	110
ABV	5.25%

• $26.99 at Caskers

Volley blurs the line between hard seltzer and canned cocktail because it’s actually a tequila soda. It’s just as refreshing to drink as a hard seltzer, and has just as few calories and no added sugar. Volley’s available flavors complement the tequila-dominant taste, and we’re big fans of the ginger one in particular.

Brooklyn Hard Seltzer

Total Wine

Brooklyn Hard Seltzer

Specs

Tasting Notes	Actually taste good, in spite of the basic flavors they come in
Calories	100
ABV	5%

• $17.99 at Total Wine

Brooklyn Brewery is a powerhouse when it comes to craft beer, so its entry into hard seltzers came as a surprise. Let’s just say it’s as good as you’d expect. The flavors aren’t too wild — grapefruit, lemon-cloudberry. black cherry-apricot and mango — but the drinkability is exceptional. There’s no boozy aftertaste, and it doesn’t feel like you’re ingesting hard fructose corn syrup.

Willie’s Superbrew

Willie’s Superbrew

Willie’s Superbrew

Specs

Tasting Notes	Another seltzer that truly (heh) tastes good thanks to real fruit juices
Calories	110
ABV	4.5%

• $21.99 at Total Wine

Take a sip of Willie’s Superbrew, and you’ll know why it’s one of the best fruited hard seltzers — because Willie’s uses actual fruit juices, and it lets you know just how much is in each can. Willie’s tastes surprisingly fresh (for a hard seltzer), making it way too easy to crush a few of these in one sitting. And just as an added bonus to drinking Willie’s, the brand donates 3 percent of its profits every year to an environmental cause.

Wild Basin

Total Wine

Wild Basin

Specs

Tasting Notes	Crisp and flavorful, these live up to the craft brewery behind them
Calories	100
ABV	5%

• $16.00 at Total Wine

The folks at Oskar Blues, a leader in the craft beer movement, make a damn good hard seltzer under the name Wild Basin. The hard seltzer brand makes great use of its location along the St. Vrain River in Colorado by harnessing the fresh, crisp water and putting it into Wild Basin. To give back to nature, Wild Basin donates a portion of sales to causes that help clean beaches and rivers.

Vizzy

Drizly

Vizzy

Specs

Tasting Notes	Straightforward, decent-tasting seltzer to mix things up
Calories	100
ABV	5%

• $18.99 at Total Wine

Hard seltzer is not healthy (though it’s peddled as a healthier option than, say, beer), so it’s pretty shocking what separates Vizzy from other hard seltzers, which is the addition of antioxidants and vitamin C. Don’t drink Vizzy thinking you’re getting your daily dose of vitamins, because at the end of the day, you’re still drinking alcohol.

Maha

Total Wine

Maha

Specs

Tasting Notes	Actually easy to sip, and features unique flavors like yuzu
Calories	110
ABV	4.2%

• $16.99 at Total Wine

Maha is one of the few 100-percent organic hard seltzers, and it even touts itself as “designed for a balanced lifestyle.” The drinks contain a blend of vitamins and minerals, like potassium, calcium and magnesium, though don’t mistake this as a health beverage. The drink itself is easy to sip, with flavors including tangerine yuzu, black cherry and raspberry.

Bon V!V

Bon V!V

Bon V!V

Specs

Tasting Notes	Light and easy drinking with fun blends you won't find everywhere
Calories	90
ABV	4.5%

• $16.99 at Total Wine

Bon V!V hard seltzers start with purified water and champagne yeasts, that is then mixed with any variety of fruit flavors. It has classic flavors like black cherry and mango, but it also has some tasty blends like raspberry dragonfruit and clementine hibiscus.

Ketel One Botanical Vodka Spritz

Kettle One

Ketel One Botanical Vodka Spritz

Specs

Tasting Notes	Healthy-tasting — or about as healthy as booze can taste — with a very floral and effervescent profile that isn't very sweet
Calories	89
ABV	4.5%

• $7.00 at Reserve Bar

Ketel One is a vodka brand, so it makes sense that its hard seltzer would be made with vodka. But calling this a hard seltzer almost doesn’t seem fair due to its makeup. These are made with a mix of vodka, botanicals, natural flavors and sparkling water, and since there’s no fruit juice, that means there’s no sugar either and very few calories (just 89 per can, among the lowest in this guide). These aren’t sweet but offer more of a sophisticated herbaceous taste that vodka tonic fans will appreciate.

Spindrift Spiked

Drizly

Spindrift Spiked

Specs

Tasting Notes	Take Spindrift's regular non-alcoholic seltzer, add a splash of white rum and you've pretty much got this
Calories	82 – 95
ABV	4%

• $20.99 at Elevated BWS

Spindrift, along with Topo Chico, is one of the few major seltzer brands to successfully make the transition to successful hard seltzer brand (still waiting on liquored-up La Croix). Its alcoholic offerings take what Spindrift does well — craft flavorful seltzer tinged with real fruit juice — and add a sugarcane-based spirit to the mix for a very light (just 4% ABV) hard seltzer that tastes outstanding.

Mike’s Hard Lemonade Seltzer

Drizly

Mike’s Hard Lemonade Seltzer

Specs

Tasting Notes	Take Mike's Hard and tone it down for a pleasant seltzer without the harsh sugary aftertaste
Calories	100
ABV	5%

• $21.99 at Country Sips

Mike’s Hard Lemonade is just fine – it tastes like really sweet lemonade that gets you drunk. Mike’s Hard Lemonade Seltzer is where it’s at. The 100-calorie drink isn’t as sweet as its non-seltzer counterpart, and the flavors are shockingly good. Like, this-could-be-from-a-state-fair good.

Truly

Drizly

Truly

Specs

Tasting Notes	Stay away from fruity flavors and lean on classics like Lemonade and Iced Tea
Calories	100
ABV	5%

• $15.99 at Instacart

People have been known to call White Claw and Truly the Coca-Cola and Pepsi of the hard seltzer world. Each has its own dedicated fanbase, and it’s a ride-or-die kind of brand loyalty. Truly brings a whole plethora of flavors to the table — like various berry flavors and citrus options — while also expanding on the hard seltzer that made the Boston Beer Company-owned brand famous. You can also find Truly Lemonade, Iced Tea and Punch, each appealing to different kinds of drinkers.

White Claw

Drizly

White Claw

Specs

Tasting Notes	Popular, for some reason. Compared to others, the flavors can seem sort of fake-tasting
Calories	100
ABV	5%

• $15.99 at Instacart

The hard seltzer that, arguably, started it all (the hype, not just the memes). White Claw is not the best hard seltzer around, but it deserves points for its effect on the industry and for literally changing the palates of the whole world. It may not be your first choice if you’re looking to get some hard seltzer in your body, but if you have a can in your hand, it has to be White Claw Wednesday.

What is hard seltzer?

Unlike bourbon, tequila or Champagne, hard seltzer isn’t legally defined.

Brandy Rand, COO of the Americas at IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, says the IWSR defines hard seltzers as being composed of a blend of carbonated water and alcohol, in some cases with added fruit flavor. “It is typically malt-based but can also be wine- or spirit-based, with typical ABV between 4% and 6%, but with potential ranges from 3.5% to over 12%.

“Another trend of hard seltzers is that they’re often marketed as “healthier” alternatives to beer, wine and mixed drinks because they have fewer calories and less or no sugar.

Why is hard seltzer so popular?

The rise in hard seltzer’s popularity can’t be pinned down to one thing, and that’s probably why it’s so popular. If you’ve ever had a hard seltzer, you’ll get the appeal. They’re easy to drink, they don’t usually taste like alcohol and they can easily get a party started (i.e. people are going to get drunk). And most importantly, they’re practically beloved by everyone.

“This is what has made the category so strong — its appeal across all demographics. There’s no such thing as one type of hard seltzer drinker — they are all ages, male and female,” Rand says. “Hard seltzers are the most universally appealing alcohol category out there right now. We see people adding hard seltzers to their repertoire across various occasions, whether they are a beer, wine or spirits drinker.”

And the wide variety of flavors makes it easy to find a hard seltzer for every taste preference. Besides typical fruit flavors, some brands are expanding to iced teas, punches and lemonades. The really creative ones are utilizing much-hyped flavors like exotic fruits and botanicals. Rand says that cherry and berry flavors seem to be the most popular, along with tropical options.

Will hard seltzer’s popularity ever go away?

Everyone and their moms rushed to get in the hard seltzer game. Even craft brewers who were adamant about never entering the space have caved. Don’t expect to see its popularity dwindle, though as Rand mentions, a slowdown is bound to happen, especially in a category that’s had such immense growth. “Right now hard seltzers are growing at triple-digits, but a slowdown to double-digits is still far outpacing competitive category performance in many cases,” Rand says.

“Consumers still indicate a high demand for hard seltzers — it’s a new category and it’s here to stay,” Rand says. “We may start to see underperforming brands vacate the category, but the staying power of hard seltzers is evident for the future.”

More Beer Alternatives

Total Wine, Drizly

• Canned Cocktails
• Hard Cider
• Non-Alcoholic Beer
• Weed Drinks

Related Topics