Hard Seltzer went from cutting edge to overly common quick, with nearly every brand in the booze business cranking out their own iteration. In the years since that first White Claw Summer, the industry has been tasked with a new challenge: keeping the trend fresh. Truly tried its hand at a seltzer lemonade, White Claw tapped into spiked tea, and now Bud Light Seltzer has hard soda.
Seltzer-soda hybrid with the boldness of a five-pop and a clean bubbly water finish was unveiled by the business. It is a new twist on hard seltzer and a refreshing change in the ready-to-drink liquor category. It was difficult to ignore the question of whether the drugged Coke was any good (sorry, I have been watching and just Like That). As a result, I followed the advice of each competent author. For the greater good of the press, I drank heavily while at work.
As a typical Midwestern girl who enjoys Diet Coke, I was nervous about the prospect of drinking a drunken beverage during the taste test. One by one, I opened all four varieties, each of which has 5% ABV, just 100 calories, zero sugar, and drank them. Will a global push for sustainability lead to more alternative packaging options? How consolidation in the wine industry affect locally will owned and operated vineyards and wineries? Hard seltzer certainly dominated 2021, in part thanks to creative flavor releases. Will this trend further transcend into the spirits category? In addition, speaking of hard seltzer, what is the future of the widely popular category as it continues to grow, with few signs of fizzling out?
It is a huge one, dude. There is a crazy vibe permeating the air. This is a major bummer for many individuals, and I am well aware of that At the very least, they’ve been placed in a terrible situation, which is quite upsetting. Anyone can tell you that having to make difficult decisions and figuring out where you fall after nearly two years of doing so is not enjoyable. On the other hand, we are taking breaks, which is a little plus. At home, there is the opportunity to enjoy a little fun. I believe many people will be reviving some of those recipes that have been gathering dust since May 2020 or baking bread for the holidays. It is almost like a flashback to the early days of Covid. My universe used to be so little, but then it grew larger again, and now it is shrinking once again. It is crazy. If there was any sympathy still for unvaccinated people, there will be less and less after this lockdown.
Just talking to my friends who are in the medical profession, who are restaurateurs, who are bar owners, there is a little feeling that this could have been a lot less bad than it is if everyone was boosted when they were eligible. In 2022, I would be prepared to have people who are a little stricter on removing privileges from those kinds of people. This is what pandemics do; they do not just end all of a sudden, which is so funny that we keep acting like it was going to. They continue to have waves that hopefully are less and less severe, but potentially more and more contagious. People also become less hospitable to those who do not seem to be caring about what everyone else is going through. Therefore, I think it will be interesting to see what happens out of this one. There will definitely be hard choices to be made. Moreover, I think that people have very different perspectives than they did after the first time they had to make those hard choices.