Toucan Margarita
Dallas, Texas
Two cans that you shake together, not one you open and drink. 100ml of 80-proof reposado over 250ml of mixer, pouring two cocktails at roughly 11.4% each.
- Congeners
- Low
- Histamines
- Very Low
- Polyphenols
- Low
- Sulfites
- Very Low
- Tannins
- Low
- Sugar
- Moderate
- Additives
- Very Low
In its favor
- ✓Additive-free 100% agave reposado with the NOM printed
- ✓Real lime and orange juice rather than flavouring
- ✓Spirit and mixer stay apart until you pour, so nothing needs stabilising
What to watch
- !The published calorie figure is the mixer alone, not the drink
- !Finished-cocktail sugar is never stated
- !One Toucan is two drinks and pours as easily as one
Factor by factor
Congeners Low ▾
Byproducts of fermentation (methanol, acetaldehyde, fusel alcohols). Strongly linked to hangover severity; darker, less-distilled spirits carry more.
Histamines Very Low ▾
Produced by bacteria during fermentation/aging. Trigger flushing, headaches, congestion in sensitive drinkers. High in red wine, beer, aged spirits.
Polyphenols Low ▾
Plant compounds with antioxidant activity. Slightly protective at low doses but at high concentrations may worsen hangover via tannin/quercetin reactions.
Sulfites Very Low ▾
Preservatives (SO₂) added to wine and some beers. Common trigger of headaches, asthma, and allergic-type reactions.
Tannins Low ▾
Astringent polyphenols from skins, seeds, barrels. Bind proteins, slow alcohol clearance, and aggravate dehydration-style symptoms.
Sugar Moderate ▾
Residual sugar amplifies hangover via blood-sugar swings and dehydration. Liqueurs and cocktails are the main offenders.
Additives Very Low ▾
Colorants, flavorings, glycerin, propylene glycol, sorbates. Cheap spirits and ready-to-drinks often hide these in trade-secret formulas.
Toucan is not a can you open and drink, which matters for every number on this page. The top can holds 100ml of 80-proof additive-free reposado. The bottom holds the mixer, lime juice, orange juice, simple syrup and citrus zest. You shake them together and pour two cocktails, 350ml of finished drink in total.
So the honest per-drink arithmetic is 50ml of 40% tequila in a 175ml serving, which is 15.8g of ethanol and an as-poured strength of about 11.4%. That is 1.1 US standard drinks per cocktail, a little stronger than a 5oz glass of wine and roughly half what a 12oz Cutwater carries. Read the ranking with that in mind: the serving being compared here is 5.9oz, not the 12oz can the rest of this category is sold in.
The number worth arguing with is the calorie claim. Toucan advertises 50 calories for the margarita, and their own wording is that “all of our mixers are under 80 calories per serve”. That figure is the mixer. It does not include the tequila, and the tequila is where the calories are: 15.8g of ethanol is about 110 calories on its own, so the finished drink lands near 160. Nothing about that is unusual for a margarita and 160 is a good number for one. It is just not 50, and the label never does the addition for you.
That is also why there is no nutrition table above. Sugar per finished cocktail is not published, and this site derives calories from declared sugar rather than reprinting a marketing figure. Backing it out of the mixer’s own calorie count puts it near 12g, which is where the moderate sugar rating comes from, but an inference is not a label and it is not going in the table as though it were one.