Canned Cocktails and Safety: “It’s Much More Difficult to Drug.”

The spirits industry is ignoring an opportunity.

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Happy spring break!! Par-tayyyyyy! Miami Beach has lifted its curfew! (Though in Santa Barbara, things just got out of hand.)

Miami Beach police patrol on March 24th/Eva Maria Uzcategui, Getty Images

Which leads me to today’s Wells $treet.

I like to spotlight business trends and discover how companies succeed when they create new products for new markets.

However, this time I’m writing about a missed opportunity. Canned cocktail companies are ignoring the chance to win over a generation of women who want to control what goes into their bodies.

“When you have a closed drink, it’s much more difficult to drug,” says “E,” who is president of a sorority at a major university in the Midwest. (I'm using initials in this story because most of the women I spoke with are not yet 21.)

Photo of various canned concoctions/Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Canned cocktails probably don’t need my help. They’re already taking market share from beer. Here’s how The Atlantic tortuously described the beverages’ appeal to Millennials in 2019 as sales skyrocketed: "The middlebrow fancies of cracking open a cold Moscow mule in a friend’s backyard might be just the thing to satisfy a generation whose desires often outpace its disposable income.” (Blechhhh, what kind of sentence is that?)

Ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails became even more popular during the pandemic as bars closed. But even after quarantine ended, Barrons says sales doubled in 2021, and The Wall Street Journal reports the convenient cans are a major reason why consumption of spirits is up while beer drinking is down.

What’s the appeal? Well, a canned margarita costs less than one served at a bar; they’re easier to open than uncorking a bottle of wine; and they let you keep tabs on how much alcohol (and calories) you’re consuming.

Anheuser-Busch bought San Diego-based Cutwater Spirits in 2019, and every liquor company from Diageo to Pernod Ricard is pouring money into the category. Nielsen data from retailers show the products have broad appeal across demographics, while Bank of America has predicted the category could soon reach $4 billion a year in sales.

But no one is talking about what I’m hearing: Canned cocktails are increasingly popular with young women who want to avoid someone drugging their drinks.

They’re showing up at house parties.

“A” is an undergrad at a large university on the West Coast, and she’s seen a huge increase in people drinking RTD cocktails and seltzers at school. “They’re showing up at house parties,” she says. One reason she likes them — “I’m opening this [drink] myself.”

These things happen, and you’ve got to be careful.

“I remember being aware of the threat of being roofie’d and then possibly assaulted, for as long as I can remember,” says “S,” who attends a top East Coast university. “These things happen, and you’ve got to be careful.”

The Justice Department says that while it has no hard numbers on how many sexual assaults occur as the result of drug-laced drinks, "nationwide law enforcement reporting indicates that the number of such assaults appears to be increasing.” Many cases go unreported, and the drugs are usually metabolized in hours, removing all trace evidence.

S, the co-ed on the east coast, tells me the story of a close friend who went to a local bar one evening. “I was having a fun time, and all of a sudden I woke up the next morning and I didn’t remember anything, and I was really disoriented,” the friend later told her. It seemed clear to S’s friend that she’d been assaulted, so she called police, but the results of the rape kit were inconclusive. “It’s hard to deal with that,” S says. “You know something’s happened but we can’t prove it. We don’t have anybody that we know for sure who did it.”

This is why S brings her own drink to house parties now, usually one she’s premixed and put in a lemonade bottle with a narrow opening so she can cover the top more easily with her hand. If she’s out at a bar, she’ll always go to the bathroom with a girlfriend so they can hold each other’s cocktails.

Man... how times have changed since I was young! I mean, back in my day:

Navigating the modern social scene doesn’t sound very fun, but RTDs can help make young women feel secure. The business sector is responding: A search on Amazon shows products like a kit to test your drink for the presence of a date rape drug, and there’s a ”drink cover scrunchie” you can put over the top of your cup for protection.

We’re asking them to jump through a lot of hoops.

Part of E’s job as head of her Midwest sorority is to make fraternity parties as safe as possible for women. She is a huge fan of canned cocktails.

“There definitely was a need for drinks that women wanted to drink that were alcoholic but not too strong, and that were safe and easy to serve,” she says. “It’s a lot easier to buy a case of cans than to try to make some concoction.”

She works with fraternities on setting up guidelines, such as immediately tossing out unattended drinks. If a frat is planning on serving a mixed drink, “We ask that it’s premixed, so that it’s not being mixed individually.” She also wants a “sober monitor” behind the bar.

“Basically we’re asking them to jump through a lot of hoops,” E says, which motivates fraternities to cough up the money for RTD drinks. Yes, there’s always beer — nicely canned or bottled — but the women I spoke with are not beer fans (at least not the type of beer served at frat parties).

Your body, your cocktail.

Canned cocktails only comprise a small portion of the overall booze market, so — call me crazy! — it seems like here’s a chance to dominate a space that puts some actual teeth into all that “Drink Responsibly” messaging.

Your intrepid reporter reached out to major RTD manufacturers to ask how much of their sales are to women, and whether they’d ever considered a safety campaign.

I waited for a response.

...

I asked again.

...

I waited some more.

...

Suffice to say that my suggestion was a major buzzkill. Companies either didn’t respond or declined to participate.

I did receive this email from the marketing department of one:

Um, that would be Bad.

Look, I get it. In general you don’t want your product remotely associated with sexual assault. You don’t want to be related to drunk driving either, right? But you are! So... DRINK RESPONSIBLY.

I feel like women are a target-rich marketing environment here. Some of these drinks are already promoting lower calories, so why not expand that mindset to cover other concerns women have? Can’t you see some clever ads where hip young women at a party give each other a knowing look as they pull out their canned margaritas and Moscow mules? And then the tagline: “Your body, your cocktail.” #YBYC

You’re welcome, Big Liquor. I’m not even demanding my usual 10%.

Back at that major Midwestern university, E tells me that some of her safety discussions don’t always go over well with other Greek houses. “There’s always a little bit of pushback when we’re asking for changes,” she says. Still, the fraternities are learning that not only do canned cocktails provide a measure of safety, but the sorority girls they’re trying to get to know like the drinks. “They’re a huge step up from the only other canned drinks available at frat parties, which is very cheap, disgusting beer.”

Okay, am I nuts? What kind of promotional campaign might work? Anyone wanna start a canned cocktail company with me? We’ll call it “Sweet Jane,” and we can produce three different versions: a margarita, a margarita, and a margarita.

Share your thoughts in the discussion below, or 📫 jane@janewells.com. Subscribers receiving this via email can reply directly to the email. And if you need more Jane (who doesn’t?), follow me as I natter daily on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Cover photo: Spring Break 2022 on South Padre Island/Getty Images News