Dive Brief:
- Many more Americans could soon have easier access to ready-to-drink cocktails as the two most populous states in the country, California and Texas, consider laws that would expand consumer access to these drinks, including to c-stores which already sell beer and wine.
- Meanwhile, companies as diverse as Jim Beam and juice maker SunnyD are dipping their toes into the burgeoning ready-to-drink cocktail market.
- NielsenIQ called RTD cocktails “one of the top growth categories across the alcohol vertical” in a November report, and noted that, at the time, sales of spirits-based cocktails were up 58% year over year.
Dive Insight:
As consumers increasingly turn to RTD cocktails, attempts to update existing laws could give c-stores another tool to draw shoppers in. And with spirits-based RTD beverages making up 46% of the innovation items in that category, according to NielsenIQ, convenience retailers have a growing pool of options that can meet a variety of consumer wants.
C-stores stand to gain. Further NielsenIQ data, as reported by NACS, showed that growth of RTD cocktail and wine cooler sales in c-stores far outpaced its growth in other venues in the first half of 2022.
While laws are broadening access to RTD cocktails — most recently, Vermont allowed private-sector companies with appropriate licenses to begin selling these beverages — the category still lags behind malt-based RTD beverages like hard seltzer. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States noted in September 2022 that while 47 states allowed malt-based beverage sales at grocery stores, only 31 extended that legality to spirit-based drinks.
In California, SB 277 would amend current law to allow “low alcohol-by-volume (ABV) spirits beverages in containers no larger than 16 ounces” along with beer and wine for retailers that have a retail package off-sale beer and wine license. Currently, to sell drinks with spirits in them, companies would need a more expansive — and more expensive — off-sale general license.
In Texas, HB 2200 would do something similar, amending current law to allow owners of certain alcohol permits to add “spirit coolers” to their product mix.
