Review: Epic Western La Paloma, Chispa Rita, and Ranch Water

Epic Western is situated just a few miles from my home in Austin, where it produces a trilogy of Texas-themed canned cocktails, all made with 100% agave tequila, sparkling water, and — as you’ll soon see — salt. Ready to give them a taste? Let’s crack open some cans and dive in.

All are served in 12 oz cans.

Epic Western La Paloma – Tequila, sparkling water, grapefruit, and salt. This seems much sweeter than you’d expect for a cocktail with no sugar listed on the ingredients, but so it goes. Quite flat — the sparkling water could be a lot more sparkling — there’s at least a solid slug of candied grapefruit on the palate, followed by a rush of saline. Herbal agave is light but present, crystalline sugar eventually dominating the otherwise lightly fruity, lightly salty finish. 8% abv. B

Epic Western Chispa Rita – The fizzy, skinny margarita — tequila, sparkling water, lime, and salt. There’s a clearer, stronger tequila influence here — never rough or rustic — and coupled with the lime this comes across as a reasonable facsimile of a margarita that you dumped a ton of soda into. Again the salt is definitely noticeable, adding a cleansing kick to the finish. Less complex than the Paloma but arguably more successful due to that simplicity. 8% abv. B+

Epic Western Ranch Water – The official boring cocktail of Texas comes to canned form from Epic Western, made with tequila, sparkling water, lime… and salt, again. I have never had a ranch water with salt in it and here it makes things taste, well, like a margarita, just slightly less sweet. The good news is that lime and tequila notes are both in effect here — and at a slightly higher abv than Epic’s other cans — but the heavy salt character on the back-end is an out-of-place head-scratcher. 10% abv. B

$19 per four-pack of 12 oz cans / epicwestern.com

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