We tried a Clamato bacon vodka Caesar... in a can

Mott's Clamato Caesar Bacon Vodka au Bacon
Sam Riches
Sam Riches

Editor's Note: We asked our Canadian correspondent Sam Riches to taste a Canada-only product that recently hit the shelves of our Northern neighbor's liquor stores. Here's what he found.

A canned bacon vodka Caesar seems like a drink made for a risk taker, someone that’s not afraid to ingest something despite health concerns and the high probability that it’s disgusting.

My friends and I took a can out to the wilderness and shared it among a couple of grizzled taste-testers. We drank it while framing a shed, because we're real men. Albeit ones who were drinking the somewhat confusingly named Mott's Clamato Caesar Bacon Vodka au Bacon.

Mott's Clamato Caesar Bacon Vodka au Bacon
Sam Riches

The horrifying smell

The anticipation was peaking as the tab cut into the aluminum and the seal broke, and the mist of the long anticipated bacon Caesar was finally released. It smelled like breakfast, but not good breakfast -- it penetrated our noses like a stale bacon fart.

The smell was a hangover in itself, a reminder of those mornings (afternoons) you’d wandered into the kitchen and spotted days-old bacon on the stovetop. You knew better, but you ate it anyway, head lowered, body writhing with shame. We inhaled deeply for a few moments, letting the stench settle in.
 

The horrifying taste

The drink fell from the can in a concerning shade of orangey-red, like the flame of desire that had once engulfed us as we waited in anticipation. There was still hope. Until the first sip.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but perhaps none greater than this. The split second before it landed on my tongue and singed through the memories of what good things taste like, I wished for recourse, but it was too late. The drink flooded my mouth, unrelenting in its fake bacon fervor. It was smoky and sweet, like someone had boiled the Kool-Aid man over an open flame and poured the remnants down my throat.

It’s too kind to say it tasted as if I’d just ordered an ordinary Caesar at a hellish dive bar and been served a flat, lifeless, soul-sucking concoction of sun-spoiled tomato juice and cheap vodka that had been distilled through a shoe, but that’s kind of what it tastes like. At 5.5%, it’s stronger than your average beer, but it doesn’t taste very strong, which is probably the best thing about this beverage. The alcohol is hidden by its overall hideousness.
 

The horrifying ingredients

We turned the can around, glistening in the high Summer sun, and looked at the ingredients: water, vodka, tomato paste, anchovies, and dried clam broth, and were suddenly enthralled once again. Maybe this drink was as wild as we had once hoped! It deserved another chance.

We had a second sip, filled with optimism and WHY DID I DO THAT.

Mott's Clamato Caesar Bacon Vodka au Bacon
Sam Riches

Conclusion

Four words: would not drink again.

It could be vastly improved with some homemade handiwork, celery salt, and all the fixings, but even then, it’s a risk --one that you should never, ever, EVER take.

Sam Riches drinks beer and eats food in the Canadian wilderness and blames clam juice for many of his problems. You can find him on Twitter at @Sam_Riches.