The best hard iced tea has two jobs: First, it should give you a nice little buzz when you consume a couple on a sunny Saturday afternoon, free of the encumbrances of workaday life. Second, it should—and I cannot stress this enough—taste like tea. It’s genuinely shocking how many hard teas simply do not taste like tea. But c’mon—it’s almost summer and I’m here to spread good vibes not bad ones, so I’m pleased to report that the hard tea landscape has improved a lot since we did our very first hard iced tea taste test in 2023. We have to appreciate progress where we can get it these days!
For our third hard tea taste test, we re-tasted several of the hard tea brands we’d tried in the past (hey, formulas change sometimes) and also added all of the new brands we could get our hands on.
We again tasted multiple Twisted Tea flavors and Arizona hard tea, but we added High Noon iced tea, Jack Daniels hard tea, and Happy Day hard tea to the mix. As I said, we weren’t asking a lot of these things. Really, they should simply contain alcohol and taste. like. tea. What left (leafed?) us wanting another sip? Here’s the best hard iced tea you can buy this summer—and, spoiler, it isn’t Twisted Tea.
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- Beatbox Hard Tea
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This is one of the best Beatbox flavors (our third fave, in fact), but the good news is that it’s also one of the best hard iced teas, period. It actually tastes like black tea! Hot damn! And it’s not carbonated, so it more closely hews to the experience of drinking actual ice tea. Like most Beatboxes, it’s pretty boozy tasting in a slightly bitter way, but it just might be the best hard tea for people who like their alcoholic beverages to remind them they’re alive. Also, we love that these come in little Tetrapaks—you can drink some, recap it, and have some more later.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- High Noon Hard Tea Variety Pack
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Twisted Tea is certainly one of the most popular hard tea brands, but it isn’t the best hard tea brand. I tried all the Twisted Tea flavors that came in a summertime party pack—Original, Half & Half, Peach, and their limited edition Rocket Pop flavor—and Peach is by far the best. It doesn’t taste like phony peach flavoring; it tastes like peach nectar. It still doesn’t taste a whole lot like tea, but it tastes good enough that I’d totally grab one of these at a BBQ and be perfectly content.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Arizona Hard Tea Variety Pack
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Like all good Americans, I have a soft spot for Arizona drinks, so this Arizona hard tea variety pack was a real treat. All three flavors—Iced Tea with Lemon, Iced Tea with Peach, and Green Tea with Ginseng & Honey—taste pretty much exactly like the Arizona bevs they’re based on. The peach tea is really sweet and nectar-y. It tastes more like peach than it tastes like tea, but it still has that distinct Arizona flavor. The lemon iced tea might be my favorite. It really tastes like lemon tea, a little tart but not in a citric acid-y way. It’s so pleasant. And the green tea tastes like the drink you know and love with just a little bit of a funky alcohol flavor. You probably wouldn’t mistake the two, but it’s very clear what the influence is. If you want the best hard iced tea for a bunch of millennials looking for a little nostalgia, this is the variety pack to pick up.
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Arnold Palmer Spiked Original Half Iced Tea & Half Lemonade
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Spiked Arnold Palmer is about as good as it gets when it comes to hard tea. It’s not carbonated. It tastes like tea—like Arizona tea, but like tea all the same. (It’s worth noting that this looks and tastes a lot like Arizona’s NA Arnold Palmer, but it doesn’t appear to be affiliated with Arizona.) This half iced tea and half lemonade is sweet. It’s tart. It’s incredibly refreshing. Arnold Palmer makes a good hard iced tea—the best hard iced tea, in fact. Nice one, Arnie (also RIP).
Credit: Merc / Total Wine & More
Best Green Tea
Best Twisted Tea
Best Variety Pack
Best of the Best
