E!’s Cocktail Wars is a playful mixology competition

Cocktail Wars drops us right into the action. Behind a bar, mixologists pour, swirl, and garnish drinks they serve to Joey Fatone and Rachel Maddow, who’s now blonde and sporting a beard—oh wait, sorry, that’s actually Lance Bass, Fatone’s ‘NSync bandmate.

I feel comfortable gently mocking Lance’s styling choices because Cocktail Wars itself is playful, and its stars warmheartedly mock each other. E! News’ Justin Sylvester, the first celebrity guest judge to join Fatone and Bass, helps set that tone by telling everyone he’s “probably not the Justin you were expecting” because he has “no pending court cases.”

Later, he jokes, “I hid in that closet harder than Lance Bass,” which makes Lance double over. So yes, there’s some zest in Cocktail Wars’ warming, inviting mix of familiar ingredients.

This competition between three mixologists is neither zany like Nailed It! nor as elevated as Drink Masters, the fantastic Netflix mixologist competition, but it’s an easygoing vessel for a light competition.

In each episode, three new mixologists compete for $10,000 across three rounds, with an elimination after the second. The first challenge is ending as the show begins, a clever choice that gives us an extra round of judging but without all the preamble.

The winner of that gets a minor advantage in the second round, after which one person is eliminated by the judges, leading to a final battle. Along the way, they prepare extravagant or deceptively modest cocktails.

The show cares enough to list ingredients on screen and point us to cocktailwars.com for the full recipes, yet doesn’t go too far past the surface layers in either preparation or tasting. The judges taste and kind of smile and nod, and then step back to analyze; maybe more in-the-moment reaction would help.

There’s a third permanent judge, mixology expert, Melissa Brooke, who’s there to give more detailed and informed feedback than two former boy band members can. Yet she also kind of fades to the background.

I wouldn’t mind more process and analysis, from the judges and the contestants, because that’s what I like best about competition TV: watching people create under pressure, and learning how they’re approaching their task.

With three judges, that means we have four—or more—judges once the guests(s) show up. On the way this season are Seth Green, Sonja Morgan and Ramona Singer, Peppermint, and even the actual Rachel Maddow, which should be fun to see if she gives Lance shit for stealing her glasses—or if she steals his blonde hair.

These guests are all here, I learned from Cocktail Wars’ press release, as “talent from across the Versant portfolio and is part of the company’s continued investment in the network’s original programming, premium content, and audience engagement across platforms.”

Versant is the new company of all the cable networks (except Bravo) that NBCUniversal dumped, and made them wear that awful name as a scarlet V.

But it’s to Cocktail Wars and Versant’s credit that the guests I’ve seen don’t feel like an advertisement in the way that, say, Project Runway’s use of Hulu reality stars was awkward and made no sense.

The vibe is just a casual hang, with some talented mixologists working their alcoholic beverage magic. And that makes Cocktail Wars an easy show to watch and recommend.

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