So are we just putting booze in everything now?

Alcohol is coming for all of your favorite zero-proof drinks. There’s hard cold brew, hard kombucha, and White Claw, White Claw everywhere. 

What’s next? Boozy breakfast smoothies? Boozy protein shakes?

It may sound hard to choke down…

… but Hard Anything is taking a swig out of Big Beer’s glass. Hard seltzer cracked $500m in sales in 2019, according to Nielsen, and grew 200+%. Meanwhile, wine and beer sales have gone flat.

• Nielsen recently predicted that beer will retool in 2020 by focusing on everything but beer.
• That means the claws are out for White Claw. Post Malone recently starred in a Super Bowl ad for Bud Light Seltzer.

So the Seltzer Wars are one thing. But… hard kombucha? 

It’s yet another story of changing tastes

Regular kombucha is one of the fastest-growing categories of temperate tipples. The boozy variety might be tapping into the notion that Generation Z isn’t in love with getting smashed:

• National surveys have shown that rates of past-month alcohol use among people 18 to 25 have declined in recent years.
• When they do imbibe, experts say they might reach for something that already has a healthy vibe.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll soon be staring at shelves of Mike’s Hard Kale Juice. But pre-mixed drinks are expected to be the next big thing, so a canned cocktail with a plant-based milk isn’t out of the question.