Why didn't they make Jack Daniel's Hard Tea taste like, you know, Jack Daniel's?

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 (or food) that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

On its surface, the very idea of Jack Daniel's Hard Tea sounds awesome. Bourbon and sweet tea? That's an awesome drink, particularly in the summer. Toss in flavors like peach, raspberry and the perpetually underutilized blackberry and, hot damn, that's an easy "yes" for me even on a crowded shelf of seltzers and canned cocktails.

Jack Daniel's is as famous for what it mixes with as it is as a spirit on its own. So it's no surprise the brand that brought us Lynchburg Lemonade and recently branched out into pre-mixed, co-branded Jack and Cokes has jumped into a burgeoning hard tea market.

So why doesn't it work?

I love bourbon. I love sweet tea. I love nebulous artificial flavors that pervert the general idea of fruit into a powder or color. But Jack Daniel's Hard Tea just seems off. After years of filling up a 52 ounce Kwik Trip cup with a pound of ice, a baseline of tea and a generous pour of whiskey before heading to apartment pools, this is a product marketed toward me. Even with that foot in the door, however, it's not getting a place in my house.

Let's drink some and talk about why.

Jack Daniel's Original Hard Tea: C+

It pours without carbonation and looks, on its own, like either a tall glass of sweet tea or straight up whiskey, depending on your outlook. It smells sweet and syrupy and, yep, a little boozy.

The first sip is lighter than expected. There's a little hollow alcohol warmth to let you know this isn't regular tea. It's quickly washed out by a rush of artificial sweetener that makes the whole thing feel like a big, weird lollipop.

It's a bit of a journey. You get a taste of brewed tea up front, minor boozy flavors and then, whoosh, that syrupy finish. It's not bad, and I'll have no problem getting through the can, but I feel like either a lighter touch on that sugar or more alcohol would have helped this find a groove.

You've got a great whiskey in here, but you're not getting that from each sip. I suppose that's kinda the point -- if you want Jack, just buy a bottle and mix your own -- but there's room for improvement.

Jack Daniel's Blackberry Hard Tea: B-

My hopes are higher for this one; blackberry is an alcohol cheat code. Everything passion fruit is in? That should be blackberry. Try a little blackberry brandy if you're not sure.

To that end, it smells great. A little tea and a lot of blackberry. Artificial blackberry, but still. Have y'all seen what food scientists can do lately? The first sip is better than the original, but the too-sweet aftertaste lingers. That's tempered by the acidic tang of the blackberry, which does make it better.

That makes it a little easier to sip and a little softer on your palate. It's still too sweet toward the end, but this time there's a bit more substance to the proceedings. It's more refreshing and substantial; not quite poundable but useful as a sipper.

Jack Daniel's Peach Hard Tea: B

You get a big whiff of artificial peach right off the top. Not gummy peach rings, but more like a schnapps. You get a little bit of the alcohol there as well, though there's no indication there's whiskey here.

And, given this is a "malt beverage" and "flavored beer," per the label, I guess there's no reason to believe there would be. You know, except for the big "JACK DANIEL'S" logos on the front and side of the can.

Welp, I'm annoyed but I like peach tea. The first sip delivers that up front, then dives into a bland hole of neutral spirits, then finishes sweet. The peach flavor helps temper off that sugar substitute toward the end, which rids it of some of the problematic stickiness and makes it easier to come back to. The lingering afterward is hard candy; sweet, sucralose fruit. It's kinda nice.

Drinking straight from the can focuses that flavor a bit, though it does make it a bit... tinny. Still, it's got some crushable Lipton Brisk bonafides to it that feel like a real problem. The layers here -- peach, booze, sweet -- hide the worst parts of the tea and instead leave you with a dense, sticky malt beverage. That sugar would eventually wear me down, but I could easily put down three of these in 45 minutes before walking into a Brewers game.

Jack Daniel's Raspberry Hard Tea: B

This smells sweet but acidic. The artificial raspberry is potent, but this tea smells boozier than the others in the lineup.

The first sip goes tart-acidic-sweet, which is actually a decent order for those three things. The raspberry flavor doesn't hit you up front, but does linger a bit afterward. It's not sticky thick and the minor sourness helps it finish drier than some of the other Jack Daniel's variants.

I'm not sure it really tastes like tea. There's a little bit of canned Brisk here that doesn't quite hang around. Instead you get something halfway there that's pleasant but very much inessential. Like the peach, it's easy to put down and you'll have little trouble getting through a can -- particularly on a hot day. But you'll probably only have vague memories of it later on and, again, no indication bourbon was even tangentially involved outside of the label.

In the end, that's a bummer. Whiskey and sweet tea -- or my poolside, big cup go-to of iced tea and Southern Comfort -- is an awesome mixed drink. But Jack Daniel's didn't make that; it opted for a Twisted Tea knockoff that exceeds the low bar of its widely available predecessor but that's about it. I wanted more from this. Instead I got a very based malt beverage.

Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?

This is 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 Jack Daniel's Hard Teas over a cold can of Hamm’s?

I wouldn't seek it out. But if it's in a tailgate cooler I'd drink one or two in between beers.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Why didn't they make Jack Daniel's Hard Tea taste like, you know, Jack Daniel's?