Finance: We tried the 'edible alcohol' that could replace cocktails — here's the verdict

Smith & Sinclair makes edible cocktails that are based on drinks made from rum, whisky, vodka, and gin.

• Smith & Sinclair makes edible cocktails that are based on drinks made from rum, whisky, vodka, and gin.
• Each edible cocktail has the alcohol content of half of a shot.
• While we found the idea interesting, we had mixed feelings about them overall.

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To many people, the idea of "edible alcohol" is limited to homemade jello shots or gummy bears soaked in vodka that never quite turn out the way you hoped. Smith & Sinclair hopes to change that.

The idea behind the London-based startup grew out of a "date night" event that the company's founders, Melanie Goldsmith and Emile Bernard, held for singles. At the event, they used board games as a way to break the ice, but they found that people had a difficult time holding drinks while playing the games.

Bernard started experimenting with jelly-based, edible cocktail recipes that would be less cumbersome than traditional drinks. The edible cocktails were a hit at the date nights, which led Goldsmith and Bernard to turn their experiment into a business.

Now, their company, Smith & Sinclair, sells edible cocktails in eight flavors and ships them around the world. We tried each flavor to see if they could replace cocktails.

See what we had to say below.

Smith & Sinclair offers edible cocktails based on drinks made from whisky, gin, rum, and vodka.

We ordered the "Large Mixed Selection," which costs $50.59 for a customer in the US.

That means there are two of each of the company's eight flavors.

There's the Rhuby Mule, a variation on the Moscow Mule that contains vodka, ginger extract, rhubarb flavoring, and sour, lime-flavored sugar.

The Long Island High Tea is similar to a Long Island Iced Tea and is made from black tea-flavored vodka, rum, and raspberry-flavored sugar.

The Godson has whisky and amaretto flavoring.

The Whisky Sour contains whisky and grapefruit-flavored sugar.

The Gin & Tonic has gin and lemon-flavored sugar.

The Elderflower Spritz is made from gin and elderflower flavoring

The Berry Daiquiri contains rum, berry flavoring, and peppercorn-flavored sugar.

The Spiced Rum has rum and clove-flavored sugar.

Each edible cocktail is 7% alcohol, which means that they're roughly equivalent to half of a shot.

We expected the edible cocktails to be filled with liquid, but they had a solid, gummy texture throughout.

While some of our taste testers preferred the solid texture to a liquid-filled alternative that would be messier, others said the texture reminded them of plastic and felt that there was too much sugar on top of each candy.

The flavors were even more interesting.

Given the amount of alcohol in each candy, we thought it would be very easy to taste the alcohol. But we found the opposite to be true: They reminded us of slightly more bitter and subdued variations on traditional gummy candies, though others thought they were too sweet. The differences between each flavor weren't extreme, and it would be difficult to tell they had alcohol in them if we hadn't known before we tried them.

While the edible cocktails were originally designed to replace traditional drinks, we thought they would work better when used to accompany a drink.

For a customer based in the US, the Large Mixed Selection costs $50.59 with shipping. This means you'd be paying around $6.32 for each shot's worth of alcohol, which is pretty typical by New York City bar standards, but wouldn't be the most cost-effective way to drink outside of a bar.

The math is a little more favorable for UK residents, since reduced shipping costs mean the same order would cost about $34.61 before taxes, which means you'd be paying $4.32 per shot.

Overall, we had mixed feelings about the edible cocktails.

While some found the taste and texture to be more pleasant than expected, others were unimpressed. When combined with the cost, our mixed feelings meant that, while we find the idea interesting, we aren't likely to buy edible cocktails in the future.

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