All Hail the Mother Superior. In Tasting Table’s ranking of 13 spiked tea brands, Twisted Tea — the brand that put the hard tea category on the map — swept the competition and emerged as (still) our favorite offering. It first hit stores in 2001, and as of 2021, the brand owned a whopping 90% of the total hard tea market share, even as more and more competitor brands surface on the contemporary market. Today, “Twea” boasts a meme-loaded Instagram account with 219K followers, and unlike many arenas in the year 2025, the hype here is hard-earned and well-deserved.
Twisted Tea is made from real brewed tea spiked with malt liquor, not unlike White Claw hard seltzers. Each sip delivers well-balanced flavor and lively textural intrigue without sporting an overkill carbonated mouthfeel, common sins of many competitor brands. It tastes like actual sweet tea (imagine), but better. As we mentioned in our review, “The tea flavor itself is strong and sweet but not too sweet. Also, like the 2 Hoots hard tea [in our taste test], Twisted Tea also has a certain fizziness to it. It’s not carbonated, but it’s not completely flat — so even if you drink this stuff warm, you’d probably still find it at least a little bit refreshing.”
Twisted Tea remains the strong leader of the hard tea category it started
These not-too-sweet, full-bodied, lemon-tinged teas are also easy to pair with food. They make a refreshing pairing for grilled burgers and hot dogs for backyard barbecue season in the summer, and they’re more slammable than beer for fall tailgates. Quoth our reviewer, “Twisted Tea’s biggest strength is its undeniable smoothness — it doesn’t burn as it goes down, it doesn’t taste overly alcoholic, and there are no cloying flavors bogging it down.” The only notable drawback here is that these bad boys are so crushable, in fact, that the undetectable 5% ABV can creep up on you if you drink ’em too quickly. No harsh alcohol aftertaste and no beer bloat.
We aren’t the only ones loving it. Twisted Tea is so popular that the brand has led significant and continuous growth figures for parent company Boston Beer, even as its hard seltzer brand Truly has brought down the average with underperforming sales, as reported by Brewbound in 2023. Twisted Tea is sold in many liquor stores, but if you aren’t already headed there, then there’s no need to make a special trip. Our go-to hard tea is widely available at gas stations, bodegas, and grocery stores. At a Target in New York, a 12-pack of Twisted Tea runs for $16.99. Long live the hard tea category — and it will, if Tweas have anything to say about it.
