Ranking Four Loko Flavors From Worst To Best

Known for containing more than five alcoholic beverages in one can, Four Loko has a unique reputation in the canned alcoholic beverage world, notes George Mason University. It's carbonated, has a beer-like taste, and yet can be very sweet. That interesting combination of experiences has led many a college student to try one of these, but be warned: Drinking an entire Four Loko by yourself is probably a dangerous idea unless you have the tolerance of Frank Gallagher from "Shameless."

Four Loko is an interesting brand, with a history that includes college controversies, FDA warnings, and, at one time, its own black market. And since we know these drinks fascinate many and don't appear to be going anywhere anytime soon, we took it upon ourselves to try (almost) every flavor the brand has to offer. After all, if you're going to take a stab at this funky carbonated drink, you should choose a flavor that is less offensive than the others. And we must say — the flavors in this taste test greatly surprised us. We even enjoyed many of them, which was shocking considering our only prior experience with Four Lokos has been overwhelmingly negative. Here are Four Loko flavors ranked from worst to best.

Disclaimer: We are not fans of grape flavor, so we weren't expecting to enjoy this. Going in, we actually thought the sour element might help cut some of the grape flavor and make it more edible, but we are sad to report we didn't taste any sourness in our can. The Sour Grape flavor from Four Loko is part of its sour line, which also includes Sour Melon, Blue Razz, and Sour Apple. As you can see, the sSour Grape was the worst of the bunch. No spoiler alerts here, but at least with all the other sour flavors, you could really taste the tartness in the drink.

We're not sure what went wrong in creating Sour Grape, but it genuinely just tasted like grape-flavored liquid cough medicine with bubbles. Gross, we know. We wouldn't buy this flavor or even pick it up at a social event. After trekking to about seven different liquor stores we still weren't able to locate the original Four Loko Grape flavor, which probably says a lot considering no one wanted to even carry it in their store. Seriously, when we asked different owners and workers, they all reported that the traditional grape flavor wasn't well-liked enough by customers to even stock it. We're sure if we had the Grape flavor to try side-by-side with the Sour Grape one we might taste a little bit of sourness in the latter, but on its own, it just tastes like straight-up grape.

Like Gold, we were even more puzzled as to what a flavor titled "Black" could be. We guessed maybe it would be akin to black licorice, but other than that we were out of guesses. Upon the first glance at the liquid inside the can, we knew what it was immediately: a Mountain Dew knockoff. The highlighter lime green color reminded us of toxic waste, and not in a fun "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" kind of way. On our first sip, we knew our prediction was right: It tasted exactly like Mountain Dew with a hint of beer in it. Again, we have nothing against beer normally, but mixing it with these other flavors hasn't worked out so far.

If you're a fan of Mountain Dew, there's a chance you could enjoy this, which is why it's a little further up on the list. If you are a Mountain Dew aficionado, though, you'll probably hate this, because it's so close to getting the flavor combination right but still misses the mark. You'll be wishing you had a real Mountain Dew and a small bottle of vodka to put in it instead of drinking Black Four Loko. Again, we have a major qualm with how this flavor is marketed: There's no indication on the can of what this flavor could possibly be. Sure, that's probably part of the allure of it, but we generally like to know what the flavor of something is before drinking it.

The Peach and Watermelon Four Loko flavors are basically tied in our minds. They both succeeded and failed at the same fundamental things. Both flavors excelled at delivering the flavor promised on the can, but they also were just far too sweet and we wished they would've dialed it back a bit. The only reason we chose to rank Peach over Watermelon was that the Peach flavor is probably more universally likable.

If you have a bunch of friends who want to try a Four Loko flavor together (which is the way you probably should try it, since one can is gigantic and contains so much alcohol), we wouldn't recommend buying this Peach flavor over any other flavor. However, if you already happen to have this one on hand, it's not a bad introduction to the brand. The Peach Four Loko flavor is pretty standard and middle-of-the-road, hence its placement here.

Once again, we were met with a flavor name that was not very indicative of what it could actually taste like. The Red Four Loko flavor had us puzzled beforehand. Would it be cherry, raspberry, apple, or some other fruity flavor? Turns out, it was cherry. We know the Four Loko website leans into the mystery of what this flavor could be, stating, "We're not gonna tell you what Red tastes like, you'll just have to try it yourself and see." We can totally see why the brand wants to lean into the mystery, as having to try out the flavor yourself can make the overall experience of it fun, kind of like a blind taste test. But, as we said before, we enjoy knowing what we're drinking before we drink it. So we're here to report, it's very much cherry flavored.

The website also goes on to tell us that we've "definitely tasted this flavor before," and that's not wrong. The Red flavor is reminiscent of anything strongly cherry-flavored item you've had before, like an ice pop or a cherry cough drop. We enjoyed this Four Loko flavor. Much like Blue Razz, it wasn't our absolute favorite because we savored some of the other flavors a lot more, but it was decent. If you have a friend who loves everything cherry, this will hit the spot.

Now we're getting into Four Loko flavors we're really excited about and will be purchasing again in the future. We've had issues with other flavors on this list missing the mark or showing up as complete mysteries. With Strawberry Lemonade, however, we were shocked to find the creators of this absolutely nailed the flavor. It didn't taste at all like beer or alcohol — which is both dangerous and delicious. This flavor simply tasted like carbonated strawberry lemonade, and we loved that.

The lemonade flavor was tart without being lip-puckeringly so, and the strawberry added a nice fruity touch to it. Strawberry Lemonade didn't make the top three simply because we loved the other flavors more. If you are getting a bit tired of your favorite Truly Lemonades, or want to just branch out and try a new carbonated lemonade alcoholic treat, this Strawberry Lemonade Four Loko is a solid option.

It's clear by now, but after tasting all of these Four Loko flavors, we realized that the ones with sour or tart elements were best because of how well they masked the malty beer flavor. The Electric Lemonade Four Loko was no different. We're not too sure why it's called "Electric" Lemonade other than for pizzazz and marketing reasons, because this just tastes like a carbonated lemonade.

Like Fruit Punch, if you're a fan of Truly Lemonades but are looking to try something new or something with (a lot) more punch, the Electric Lemonade variety is the one to try. Perfect for a warm summer afternoon by the pool or at the beach, you could have a cup of ice nearby at the ready and sip this bad boy all afternoon (and night, if we're being realistic). The Electric Lemonade Four Loko takes our second place because it's universally likable and delicious, but the flavor that took our top spot was just too good that nothing could top it.