British drink memories and my Smirnoff Ice nostalgia

Smirnoff Ice brought all the memories flooding back. It was unbearably sweet, a little bubbly and, to me, didn’t taste like alcohol. I thought it tasted good. Apparently I still had a fond place in my heart for a drink I remembered as both a friend and an enemy.

For this taste test, shared in April 2022, I’d asked British people what they drank growing up and bought a selection of their answers. People of different ages replied, so this was a small collection of memories rather than one drink that represented every teenager. What made me happy was discovering that some Brits had been through the same Smirnoff Ice phase I’d had in Canada.

An adequate cider and a surprising mixture

Strongbow was familiar for a different reason. When I first moved to the UK and didn’t know what to order in a pub, it was what I used to drink. I remembered it as neither great nor terrible, and trying the classic version again didn’t change that very much. It was perfectly adequate, but not as exciting as other ciders I’d tried.

I hadn’t tried snakebite before. For mine, I mixed equal parts Strongbow and Carling lager, after tasting the Carling on its own and finding that I didn’t like it. Together, though, they weren’t bad. I don’t really enjoy the taste of a lot of beers, and I wouldn’t want this mixture often, but I could actually understand its appeal. I was shocked by how decent it was.

Snakebite and black added blackcurrant squash to that mixture, and this was where I lost some enthusiasm. I think I put too much squash in. A little touch might have been fine, but mine tasted far too blackcurranty and reminded me of the dark-fruits cider I already found sickly sweet. It grew on me a bit, yet I still preferred the version without it.

Sweet, bubbly and familiar

Lambrini came up a lot in the replies, and I eventually found a bottle in a corner shop. My verdict was that it was fine, very sweet, bubbly and pretty light. I’d certainly had worse. I did wonder whether my opinion might have been helped along by the drinks I’d already tasted, but I thought I’d rather have it than an IPA.

Then there was Smirnoff Ice. Even before tasting it, the smell brought back memories I’d long since repressed. It had been a big part of my teenage drinking in Canada, and I liked knowing that some British viewers remembered it too. The sweetness was ridiculous, but tasting it again still made me nostalgic. Nine out of nine nostalgic hangovers was my rather unscientific score.

Apple Sourz and the cider I disliked most

Apple Sourz immediately made me think of apple-flavoured cold medicine. It was sweet, sour and a fun colour, but the medicine comparison was hard to get past. Even so, it wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever tried. I thought I’d rather have that apple taste than a cinnamon-flavoured shot, and it might even have beaten the tequila shots I remembered having too many of.

K Cider was much less redeeming. Cider was my usual pub drink, but I’d never heard of this one or seen it before, which made me a bit worried. It poured a golden yellow-orange colour and then tasted horrible. Strongbow was so much better to me, as were the other ciders I’d tried in my cider taste test. I thought I might even rather have the Apple Sourz, which was saying something.

WKD Blue tasted like a melted freezie

I liked the colour of WKD Blue straight away, because blue and teal are among my favourite colours. The flavour was an even bigger surprise. It reminded me of a blue freezie, one of those tubes of juice mixture you freeze and eat like a popsicle. To me, this tasted like a melted one, without an obvious alcohol taste. I loved it.

Of this particular selection, K Cider was the worst thing that came to mind, and snakebite and black wasn’t for me either. Plain snakebite had surprised me, and Smirnoff Ice was the one I came back to as my favourite. Horrible memories, fond memories, and the same cloudy drink on both sides of the Atlantic.

Watch my taste test of viewers’ remembered drinks.