"Recently, much has been written about brand successes in ready-to-drink (RTD) spirits. For instance, the explosive growth of Long Drinks, Surfside, BeatBox and BuzzBallz, to name a few. Not to mention the extremely fast rise of White Claw, to more than 3% share of beer, and High Noon, the original spirit brand to reach national scale and prominence. It almost sounds too easy."
"Comments like this are what the consumer wants: authenticity, satisfying an unmet need, beer too much of a flavor challenge and authentic cocktails too inconvenient. I guess it is time to roll over and embrace the inevitable. Before we do this, let us take a look at the proclaimed death of traditional beverage alcohol categories in the past."
"Beer The New York Times in 2002, The Wall Street Journal in 2004, USA Today, Ad Age and "Time Magazine" all wrote about the death of beer and the rise of sweet alc-pops and craft beer. The future is in flavored malt beverages (FMBs) and craft beer. From 2018 to 2025, hard seltzers and RTDs are killing beer. It is ironic how craft is no longer written as the future of beverage alcohol."
Ready-to-drink (RTD) spirits experienced rapid brand growth, with examples including Long Drinks, Surfside, BeatBox, BuzzBallz, White Claw and High Noon. Consumer preferences favored authenticity, convenient cocktails and simpler flavor profiles, creating unmet needs that RTDs addressed. Major media repeatedly declared traditional categories like beer, spirits and wine to be dying at different times across decades. Flavored malt beverages and craft beer were once touted as the future, and more recently hard seltzers and RTDs challenged beer from 2018 to 2025. Historical cycles show that proclaimed category deaths have often been premature as market dynamics evolve.
Read at Bevindustry
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]