Cocktail of the Week: Sunshine Punch is the dark shadow of a creamsicle
Sunshine Punch looks great, but it's stuck halfway between a lot of what you need in a good cocktail.
Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Just because canned cocktails are a full blown thing doesn’t mean we should forget their big brother; the bottled cocktail.
Pre-bottled cocktails are a genre that’s envolved from the early days of Chi-Chi’s margarita mix. Those old standbys persist — a mai tai in a 1.75-liter bottle meant to assist the laziest home bartender — but they’ve been supplemented by new spirits that tread a trail blazed by Southern Comfort and Bailey’s Irish Creme.
Sunshine Punch falls into the latter category, a Florida variant of Rumchata-type creamy liqueurs. Those can be great as easy, old-man shots or as minor ingredients in enterprising cocktails. But Sunshine Punch wants more; it wants to stand on its own as a proper drink, sipped over ice preferably near a body of water on a warm day.
The bottle is unique. The pebbled, opaque bottle is an embossed orange peel, leaving no doubt what you’re getting into. And the “sky above, sand below” tagline feels like it’s been lifted straight from a Kenny Chesney tailgate. There’s no doubt it stands out on the liquor store shelf.
How about when it’s poured into a rocks glass?
Sunshine Punch: C+
There’s not much of a smell to it, and it pours a little creamier than orange. It looks like a light egg nog or a tinted Rumchata than the bright citrus rind, at least more than the bottle would suggest.
While the ingredients promise rum, vodka and liqueur, you get a little more vodka-OJ up front than you’d expect. It’s creamier than a screwdriver or a fuzzy navel, but it’s still a little stronger than you’d think an 18 percent ABV drink would hit you. Or at least, something in a bright orange bottle labeled “punch” would hit you, but I guess that can be a verb and a noun so maybe I’m the idiot here.
It’s good enough, but it’s halfway to a lot of things. Not quite creamy enough. Not quite orange. A little boozy but not powerful enough to flip any switches. It’s a nice idea, but the bottle is a lot more fully formed than the drink itself, which is unimpressive but totally fine.
Sunshine Punch is easier than a cocktail you’d make yourself and has none of the satisfaction involved. But it’s low effort and a nice halfway step between a hard seltzer and hard liquor. There’s an audience for that, even if it’s not me.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm’s?
This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Sunshine Punch over a cold can of Hamm’s?
No. It’s nice as a change of pace drink, but one is enough for me.