Cocktail of the Week: East Imperial's mixers bring big flavor and a touch of class to your home bar

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.

Craft cocktail mixers are having a moment right now. A combination of well-stocked home bars — I want to anecdotally chalk that up to the pandemic but can’t back it up — and a swell of premium spirits has led to a higher class of the stuff we mix with our booze. While there’s still value to a quickly stirred Crown Royal and Royal Crown, there’s been a market shift toward single-use, high-quality tonics and sodas to replace the beverage guns at your local bar or two-liter bottles at home.

I’m arguably the wrong audience for this. I usually drink my liquor with a little ice and little else. If I’m making more than a two-step cocktail it’s a Wisconsin-style brandy old fashioned, which anyone outside the Badger State will assure you is a monstrosity (it sorta is. It tastes great, however). But I can appreciate a good soda and if these mixers are as good as their premium branding suggests, they’ll stand up in extremely simple mixed drinks.

Well, let’s dig in.