8 Sun Cruiser Flavors, Ranked

Canned, ready-to-drink cocktails are having a moment. They're an easy and refreshing way to enjoy a cocktail where you might otherwise be limited to beer, cider, or seltzer. No need to bring all the ingredients and spend your time mixing, since everything from canned margaritas and Moscow mules to Dunkin'-inspired canned cocktails are easily within your reach.

Given their convenience, it's no surprise that ready-to-drink cocktails are seeing sales growth during a time when other types of alcohol are struggling. According to the 2025 Distilled Spirits Council Annual Economic Briefing, pre-mixed cocktail sales grew 16.4% from 2024 to 2025, while spirits supplier sales in the U.S. fell 2.2% in the same period. 

The biggest growth has been for brands that use real spirits in the drinks, like the hard iced tea and lemonade brand Sun Cruiser, which uses real, premium vodka in all of its varieties. For many people, real spirits taste better than their malt alternatives, and that's absolutely the case when comparing Sun Cruiser to other brands you might think of when you imagine hard lemonade or hard iced tea. But which Sun Cruiser flavor is the absolute best? That's exactly what I wanted to find out! I tasted and ranked eight varieties of Sun Cruiser — four iced tea flavors and four lemonade flavors. It was a very tight race, but here's how things shook out.

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

I want to start by saying that all eight varieties of Sun Cruiser I tried were enjoyable, with one caveat you'll notice for the flavor I ranked in sixth place. In eighth place, though, is the Blueberry Lemonade flavor, which landed at the bottom because it just wasn't very memorable. This was really surprising to me given that Sun Cruiser is manufactured by the same company (Boston Beer Company) that makes Truly Hard Seltzer, and when I ranked Truly Hard Seltzer flavors, blueberry was near the top.

When I tried the Blueberry Lemonade Sun Cruiser, I could tell that the taste was more than just a standard lemonade, but it was really difficult to identify the blueberry flavor for what it was. At first, it just seemed to muddle the lemonade flavor. Thankfully, the smell helped by offering enough hints of blueberry that my brain eventually caught up and was able to place the blueberry taste. Still, compared to the other flavors, it just wasn't very exciting.

One thing I really appreciated about the iced tea and vodka varieties of Sun Cruiser is that they all had a very distinctive tea flavor. I grew up drinking sweet iced tea, and there's nothing worse than something claiming to be made from tea but just tasting like sweetened water that once looked at a tea leaf. Sun Cruiser uses real tea leaves in all its flavors, and it shows!

The Raspberry Iced Tea flavor has that definitive tea flavor, but the raspberry isn't as easily identifiable. Instead, the raspberry creeps in as part of the aftertaste. That said, the smell is almost overwhelmingly raspberry. The Raspberry Iced Tea variety is one of three Sun Cruiser flavors that uses real fruit juice, too. For that reason, it might rank higher for people who love the smell of fresh raspberries, but it just wasn't as good as many of the other options for me.

Pink Lemonade Sun Cruiser was the most difficult flavor to rank. The very first sip had me thinking it would end up at the bottom of the ranking because of a strong bitterness. The flavor was overly tart and missing a freshness that would have balanced it. However, once the drink sat for a bit, the flavor shifted and mellowed out in a pretty surprising way. Whatever was causing the bitterness seemed to fade and the freshness that was missing when I first tasted it finally had a chance to shine through.

Because Sun Cruiser also has a Strawberry Lemonade flavor, I started to wonder what (if any) flavors pink lemonade contains in addition to lemon. It turns out, the origin of pink lemonade is pretty convoluted and uncertain, so there's no one single definition aside from the fact that it should have a pink tinge. 

Some versions use food coloring to attain that look while others use natural sources like cranberry juice or beets. I'm not sure what Sun Cruiser uses for the signature shade, but given that it tastes and behaves differently from the Classic Lemonade, there's something in there that impacts its flavor, and not for the better. Pink Lemonade lands in the sixth spot rather than the bottom simply because it mellowed over time. Had it tasted that way from the beginning, it no doubt would have ranked higher.

Although it didn't quite make the top half of the ranking, the Strawberry Lemonade flavor of Sun Cruiser was delicious. I noticed that both the smell and flavor reminded me of fresh picked strawberries at their perfect ripeness. It was like a warm spring day in a can.

The drink had a lot of juiciness and freshness from the strawberry flavor that balanced the sweetness and tartness of the lemonade really well. Instead of being too sweet with the addition of the fruit, the Strawberry Lemonade had a delicate, almost floral flavor. I could easily imagine serving this in a big pitcher with fresh strawberries (or strawberry ice cubes) to amp up the flavor even more, but it is certainly great on its own.

The Half & Half flavor combines the best of both Sun Cruiser worlds by mixing iced tea and lemonade with vodka, offering the flavor profile of an Arnold Palmer (though not everyone agrees that half tea and half lemonade is the perfect ratio for the iconic golfer-created drink). Personally, I could have gone for a bit more tart lemon flavor in this one, as it tasted a good deal sweeter than the other iced tea flavors, despite having the same 1 gram of sugar that all of the varieties have. 

In spite of the sweetness, the other, more aromatic aspects of the lemon flavor are fully present in a way that makes it undeniably a half and half mix. I can smell lemon and I can taste lemon, but there just isn't enough sharpness, making it just a bit too sweet for something that I want to keep sipping on throughout a hot weekend day outdoors. A touch more tartness would have pushed this variety up a spot or two.

Given the overly sweet impression the Half & Half Sun Cruiser left on me, I feared that Classic Lemonade would suffer the same issues. I was pleasantly surprised to instead find a really great lemonade flavor with a balance of sweet and sour notes accompanying the citrus aromatics of this variety. 

You might think that additional flavors would improve on the lemonade base, but this is classic for a reason. While you could argue that the other lemonade varieties have more interesting flavor profiles given the attributes of the strawberry, blueberry, and mystery pink ingredients, those flavors mask or overpower some of the inherently amazing attributes of the pure lemon classic. In this case, it really is the original that shines.

The first time I ever had a flavored iced tea, it was a peach tea and I was instantly smitten. In the time since, I've had some amazing peach iced teas and some that were less than stellar, so I was cautiously optimistic about trying Sun Cruiser's take on the drink. I had no reason to worry. The Peach Iced Tea variety is everything I want in a peach tea, so there's no wonder it's one of the best flavors of the bunch. 

The drink smelled gloriously peachy right away, evoking memories of warm peach cobbler or fresh peaches and cream during the summer. The flavor was deliciously peachy as well, with the perfect amount of soft sweetness to balance the slight astringency of the tannins in the tea leaves. Had it not been for one other variety of Sun Cruiser, Peach Iced Tea would have taken the top spot, but it was just barely edged out.

Just like Classic Lemonade was the best tasting lemonade variety, Classic Iced Tea was the best tasting tea flavor, and the best flavor overall. Every sip produced an audible "Mmm" because it was just that good.

For what are likely obvious reasons, the Classic Iced Tea has the strongest tea flavor of all the varieties. It manages a soft sweetness that only enhances that tea flavor, and there is virtually no bitterness. The Classic Iced Tea is also very refreshing. I could drink these all summer long and transition right into fall with them, especially with tea's ability to pair well with warm-spiced desserts like spice cake. 

Be warned, however, that if you're used to drinking sweet iced tea, these could sneak up on you. Like all the other flavors of Sun Cruiser, this variety has a relatively mild alcohol content of 4.5% ABV, but it's incredibly easy to drink and that 4.5% will start to add up quickly if you aren't careful. Always drink responsibly.

I sampled all eight varieties of Sun Cruiser in a head to head tasting. I tasted each flavor both from the can and from a small plastic cup to see whether the vessel had any bearing on the taste. The small cups also allowed me to better distinguish the different smells that were present in each variety, and provided insight into how temperature impacted the taste. 

I first sampled all of the iced tea varieties followed by all of the lemonade varieties. Once I had determined the top contenders in each of those categories, I tasted each variety again, alternating between iced tea and lemonade flavors. 

With a rough idea of which varieties were in the top, middle, and bottom of the pack, I finally tasted each variety compared to the other flavors in that section of the ranking. While the temperature and/or sitting time did have an impact on the flavor of all the varieties, only one flavor was notably different in a way that affected its rating, and it did so positively.