Sinless Margarita Review

I don't think you are supposed to get a buzz on when doing product reviews for a weight loss blog but that's exactly where I find myself tonight. And I don't care! I spent half the day in a warehouse cheering my daughter on to a 9-0 record in volleyball, and when I got home I figured it was time to crack open the bottle of Sinless Margarita Mix sitting in my frig – not to mention the bottle of 1800® Silver Tequila sitting atop the frig. Serendipity? Perhaps.

Before I get into my thoughts on the product, let's get everyone educated.

What's a Margarita?

I figure I better start there, just in case. Let's be clear here – this review is not going to be about the perfect margarita recipe. That is quite simple – 2oz. 100% Agave Tequila, 1oz. Cointreau and 1oz. fresh lime juice. Salt the rim if you like. Do yourself a favor and make one of those some time. Bet you can't drink just one. Margaritas are typically served shaken with ice, on the rocks, blended with ice (frozen) or straight up. When I make them myself I make them shaken with ice but for some reason I usually go for frozen when I'm in a restaurant. Perhaps because I'm ordering a 40oz. special.

What's a Sinless Margarita?

Here is how they describe it:

An All-Natural & Sugar Free Margarita Mix that you can enjoy and not feel guilty about! The Sinless Margarita is made with only the best, natural ingredients. We use real lime and lemon juice and balance it perfectly with the all natural sweetener Stevia. You do NOT need to add Triple Sec.

The last bit is key because Triple Sec (remember to go with Cointreau) is chock full of calories. 80 per ounce – in fact that tequila recipe I shared is going to set you back about 225 calories for a 4 ounce drink.

But here's the thing, it isn't the margarita connoisseur they are going after. It's my wife and her friends who will soon be sitting out on the deck sipping some swill from Bethany Frankel called Skinny Girl Margarita Mix.* Now I'm not saying that's who they mean when they write "Skinny" but I think you can put two and two together.

Final Verdict

I mixed my Sinless Margarita's three ways during my taste taste – shaken with ice, frozen and straight up (without the tequila). My 13 going on 14 year old son had a little sip of the first and then also had a glass straight up (without the tequila). Yes, I'm a bad dad. But he says he liked the straight up one better so maybe it worked out for the best! He said it tasted like limeade. I ended up enjoying the shaken variety, but I had to make a few of them to be sure. The frozen one got too frothy and then didn't mix well with the ice, I don't know if that was purely operator error or if there is some chemical reason why it didn't blend nicely. Probably the former.

Remember, I'm not comparing this to a fresh, homemade margarita. There is no comparison. But if you are looking to watch your calories, I found this to be a tasty alternative to some of the other sugary mixes. It had good flavor with a slightly sour finish that was not off-putting.

Although that does bring up an interesting point.

Is it really low-calorie?

Here's what I come up with for calorie counts for the 3 referenced drinks:

Fresh Margarita: 226 calories (4oz. pour – 138 calories for 2oz. tequila, 80 for 1oz. Cointreau and 8 for 1oz. of lime juice)

Skinny Girl Margarita Mix: 100 calories (4oz. pour – 100 calories for 4oz. mix, alcohol is already included.)

Sinless Margarita Mix: 74 calories (4oz. pour – 5 calories for 3oz. mix, 69 for 1oz. tequila)

So yes, lower calorie if you assume that these would be a standard way people would drink them. But also less alcohol – if you add a little more tequila you are going to easily get up to 100 calories too. Low-cal when compared to the gold standard, but I think they put out a bit of FUD when the printed a card saying that a 20oz. Skinny would be 490 calories (that sounds about right) and a 20oz. Sinless would only be 33 (that doesn't). They neglected to mention that alcohol is already included in their competitor's and that theirs would increase in calories once tequila was added.

That aside, if I don't have time to make a fresh margarita I would much prefer to control my mix/alcohol ratio and use a mix that doesn't include the booze, like Sinless Margarita. Follow them on Facebook and/or Twitter and tell them John said hello.

* If you didn't click through to read the review of Skinny Girl I just have to do that here, it's too good not to share:

What it tastes like:
Say the cute little four-year-old down the block made a bowl of lemonade but instead of sugar used Splenda and instead of lemons used lemon flavoring and put it in a big bowl filled with ice and set it in the sun so all the ice melted and the "lemonade" got kind of hot and she got bored and went inside and a Labrador retriever came along and lapped some up and then stuck his head in the bowl and got the stuff all up in his nose and sneezed uncontrollably into the bowl for a while. That's what it tastes like. On ice.

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