Four Loko

Tasting Notes

The aroma is dominated by artificial fruit flavoring — typically watermelon, grape, or citrus depending on the variant — with a synthetic sweetness that reads more like candy than fruit. The body is thin and heavily carbonated, with intense sugar upfront and a sharp, boozy finish that the sweetness only partially masks. There is little complexity here; the flavor profile is engineered for palatability rather than craft. The high ABV at 14% is notable and unusually aggressive for the category, and it shows on the finish.

About the Brewery

Phusion Projects is the Chicago-based company behind Four Loko, founded in 2005 by three Ohio State University alumni. The brand became nationally controversial around 2010 when its original caffeinated formulation was banned by the FDA, and the caffeine was subsequently removed. The company pivoted toward high-ABV flavored malt beverages and hard seltzers, and Four Loko remains one of the highest-profile — and most scrutinized — products in the FMB category.

Food Pairings

Pairing food with this product is unconventional territory, but the heavy residual sweetness does cut through the salt and fat of casual snack foods like chips or pretzels, where the contrast keeps neither from being overwhelming. Spicy foods such as hot wings work reasonably well because the sweetness tempers heat. Very sweet desserts, however, tend to clash rather than complement, as competing sugar layers become cloying. If anything, treat it the way you might a wine cooler — alongside light, salty, or mildly spiced foods rather than anything nuanced.

Style Guide

Flavored malt beverages are fermented from a malt base — similar to beer — but stripped of most traditional beer character through filtration and then re-flavored with fruit, sweeteners, or other additives. They originated commercially in the 1990s with products like Zima and Smirnoff Ice and occupy a regulatory space distinct from spirits-based cocktails, which historically made them cheaper to produce and tax-advantaged. What separates high-ABV FMBs like this one from standard entries in the category is the significantly elevated alcohol content, which is achieved through extended fermentation rather than spirit addition, pushing them closer to fortified beverages in effect while remaining legally classified as malt beverages.