The Best Smirnoff Ice Flavor Is Bursting With Fresh Fruit Flavor

A couple of decades ago, you couldn't find a college party that didn't have bottles of Smirnoff Ice going around. Crisp, sweet, and tangy, the pre-made vodka cocktail was both approachable for newbie drinkers and affordable, while still appealing to the palates of more seasoned drinkers. Back then, there were only a handful of flavors available, with what exactly went into the milky-clear Original Smirnoff Ice being a bit of a mystery. Today, the drink has made a resurgence, with 18 different variants available in multiple can and bottle options. The question is, are any of these young'uns any good?

Chowhound decided to try out every single one of them and put together a ranking of the best Smirnoff Ice flavors. After some rigorous (and fun) testing, we determined our top choice to be Pineapple Lemonade, which was so good that it even beat the nostalgia of the Original flavor, which ranked fourth. Unsurprisingly, the ones that performed the worst were the zero-sugar ones, as they couldn't compete with our best-ranked flavor on any level. If you've always been curious to try out a bottle for yourself, you can't go wrong with an ice-cold Pineapple Lemonade.

In our testing, we found that the Pineapple Lemonade flavor brought its pineapple taste to the forefront, unlike the lower-ranked flavors whose fruity notes were masked by artificial sweeteners. The sweetness of the pineapple was balanced out by the zestiness of the lemonade, making the tropical flavors burst out of the bottle. It was refreshing, juicy, and a definite crowd-pleaser — the kind of drink you'd enjoy by the pool, at the beach, or near just about any body of water.

The runner-up flavor, Peach Lemonade, was only edged out by our personal preference for pineapple. The balance of sweet and tart in the peach variant was pretty much at par with the pineapple one — that's how close the two flavors are in terms of quality. If peach is more your style, you're also in for a real treat. The fruit flavor was brimming with brightness, with the acidity of the lemonade balancing things out as well as it did with the Pineapple Lemonade.

The strength of both of these flavors also gives them a lot of potential as the booze of choice for vodka Jell-O shots. Since they're already pre-flavored (and therefore pre-sweetened), you'll need to adjust a few things to make the Jell-O shots just right, but the opportunity for experimentation with combining flavors is just too fun to pass up. You can amplify each respective fruit by using pineapple or peach Jell-O, or you can try mixing them up with a similarly summery flavor like lime.