Firewater was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 67, based on nine reviews.[1]
Soren Baker of Los Angeles Times called it "a rare modern-day rap album that is as fun as it is good".[4]Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club resumed: "far from classic, but pretty damn fun nonetheless".[11]Spin reviewer described the album as "like your favorite dive bar, it feels uncomfortably familiar".[10]
In mixed reviews, AllMusic's Andy Kellman noticed: "what prevents the album from being on par with the likes of 21 & Over and Coast II Coast is that the MCs have slowed a little with age".[2] Adrian Covert of Prefix magazine wrote: "the members of Tha Alkaholiks may not have wrapped up their stellar career with the bang many had hoped for, but I'll still drink to this".[7] Eric Neigher of Slant magazine stated "much of Firewater has a blast-from-the-past feel".[9] Michael Frauenhofer of PopMatters wrote: "it may not be their best album, but where it doesn’t really add to their legacy, neither does it really tarnish".[6]NOW magazine reviewer found out that "their beats and rhymes reflect none of the punchliney fun they used to have".[5]