Hard seltzer bubbles up as the boozy beverage of summer 2019

Call it the summer of the alcoholic seltzer.

This summer’s buzziest boozy drink has fewer calories than beer and less alcohol than a mixed drink and comes pre-bottled or canned for easy transport and on-the-go drinking. Light and often fruit-flavored, hard seltzer is having a moment. It’s been around for the past five years — the OG SpikedSeltzer hit the market in 2013 — but is reaching a critical mass this summer. And no, it’s not just a bottled vodka soda or a less-sugary malt beverage.

Alcoholic seltzer differs from vodka sodas or other mixed drinks in the science behind its buzz, making it more naturally low-calorie than other competitors. The basis of the alcohol in most spiked seltzers is fermented sugar, while vodka is often grain-fermented and beer gets its alcohol content from malted barley fermentation..

While a “sugar-brewed” alcohol may sound unhealthy, it’s actually gluten-free, flavor-neutral and, most important for health-conscious drinkers, lower in calories. That’s because of how completely corn or cane sugar ferments when it interacts with yeast, as opposed to malt sugars, which don’t ferment completely and result in additional sugars left behind from the process that add calories to the drink.

That’s a complicated way of saying that the alcohol in boozy seltzers is naturally formulated to be lower in calories with less of a taste, ideal for being combined with flavored carbonated water.

A 2019 Nielsen survey showed a 193% spike in sales year-over-year for hard seltzers, with consumers listing the beverages’ convenience and health appeal as the top reasons to be attracted to the drinks. “A convenient way to have a cocktail” was the No. 1 reason buyers said they opted to purchase ready-to-drink cocktails, followed by “I can buy them in my grocery store” and their “light and refreshing” characteristics.

Hard seltzers weigh in at about 5 to 6 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). Beers largely fall in the 4 to 7 percent range, though some light beers are even less alcoholic. Heavier ales soar over the 7 percent bar, and wines generally range between 12 to 14 percent with outliers on either sides as well.

Mixed drinks and cocktails, of course, vary wildly in their ABVs depending on the amount of alcohol in the drink, the size of the glass, the drinks’ nonalcoholic mixers and even the ways the drinks are shaken or stirred.

That being said, while a vodka soda is obviously less boozy than a martini, opting for low-calorie mixers like seltzer or diet soda can actually increase levels of drunkenness. In a small 2013 study in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, researchers found that drinkers pounded mixed drinks with low-calorie mixers faster than they did drinks with more sugary mixers, resulting in 20 percent higher breathalyzer tests.

What does that mean for boozy seltzers? Well, a normal-size vodka soda may have an ABV less than 10 percent but will likely be higher than alcoholic seltzers’ 5-percent average, mitigating the impact that seltzer-water mixer has on drinkers’ speed of consumption.

Truly

Spiked seltzers are often flavored naturally with hints of fruit like lemon, lime, cranberry, pear, strawberry, blueberry, peach, watermelon, mango and many more. Herbs like basil and rosemary also show up in spiked seltzer flavors as do refreshing veggies like cucumber.

SpikedSeltzer — now known as Bon & Viv — was the first boozy sparkling water on the market, and White Claw is currently the most popular, accounting for about half of the spiked seltzer market, per Fortune, followed by Truly Spiked & Sparkling products.

While plenty of independent boozy seltzer brands exist, the big alcohol conglomerates have their own brands. Bon & Viv is owned by Anheuser-Busch, White Claw shares a Chicag-based parent company with Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Truly comes from Sam Adams owners Boston Beer, MillerCoors is behind Henry’s Hard Sparkling Water and vodka behemoths Smirnoff and Svedka both have sparking brands. Smaller brands include Nauti, Clear Coast, Grandeur and Fair State.

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