Take Your Ranch Water To Town - PUNCH

For a cocktail once referred to as one “only a local could love,” the dead-simple Ranch Water may seem a surprising candidate for national stardom. But since Punch first reported on the West Texas staple in 2016, the drink has exploded in popularity; it’s now lauded as a better take on hard seltzer, a cocktail “sweeping the nation,” a new muse for the canned cocktail boom, and, for some, the drink of the summer.

Ranch Water has long been beloved in its native Texas, making an appearance on menus at historic destinations and ice houses like the Gage Hotel and Ranch 616. In its simplest form, it’s a thirst-quenching combination of tequila, lime juice and Topo Chico—for Ranch Water devotees, no other brand will do. By some accounts, when made with any other sparkling water, the drink is simply a tequila rickey, undeserving of the Ranch Water name. Topo, a Mexican mineral water that has amassed a cult following, sometimes serves as the drink’s vessel, too, as it is often built directly in the bottle.

At Dallas mezcalería Las Almas Rotas, the house Ranch Water can be made with tequila, mezcal or sotol. Owner Shad Kvetko says the best versions of the drink feature solely the spirit, fresh-squeezed lime juice and carbonated mineral water. (While he prefers Topo, the bar has had to turn to other options due to pandemic shortages.) As a purveyor of agave-based drinks, Kvetko says Ranch Water is “a good vehicle for these spirits because of its simplicity and—at least the way we make it—a lack of sugar.” 

That simplicity might appeal for other reasons, too. Ranch Water has been referred to as a “healthier Margarita” (hear that, Skinny Margarita?) because it happens to forgo a sweetener.  “Tequila was and continues to be on fire, and consumers started looking for more premium ingredients without the sugar,” says Monique Ramos, brand director for Ranch Rider Spirits, the company that made the first of now many canned Ranch Water brands. According to her, the cocktail, with its fresh citrus and reposado tequila, is “a perfect upgrade to a hard seltzer.”