What’s behind BuzzBallz – Gen Z’s favourite alcopop?
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The first time I clapped eyes on the ready-to-drink cocktail brand BuzzBallz was about 18 months ago in my local corner store. The brightly coloured, spherical cans – £4.50 each or two for £8 – were stacked in the chiller alongside bottles of blue WKD and Jacob’s Creek and tins of Jack Daniel’s and coke. They had names like “Strawberry ’Rita” and “Choc Tease”, and looked more like candy than alcoholic drinks.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was staring at a brand that would romance the notoriously alcohol-averse Gen Z. Dreamed up by a high-school teacher in Texas, it’s now the US’s leading ready-to-drink (RTD) over 10 per cent abv. It was snapped up by drinks giant Sazerac last year in a deal rumoured to be worth at least $500mn.
Twenty-five-year-old Sean Kiilu (a former socials whizz for Selfridges and founder of merch company Rosko Studios) explains the brand’s allure. “Before 2022, BuzzBallz were just available in America,” he says. “You’d see people on TikTok doing taste tests and filming their reactions to different flavours.” The word-of-mouth reputation grew as the result of clever distribution and strategic marketing. “Some colours or editions were only available in certain stores, so it became like a treasure hunt.”
Packaged at 13.5 per cent abv, these cheap-and-cheerful twists on disco drinks are considerably stronger than your average RTD. So it’s the perfect pre-party drink.
When Brit girl fashion label Peachy Den threw its sixth birthday party, BuzzBallz were the drink of choice. Celebs snapped romping with BuzzBallz included the bikini-clad drill rapper Ceechynaa and Chicken Shop Date creator Amelia Dimoldenberg. I’ve even heard of BuzzBallz being served ironically at dinner parties, alongside the Ottolenghi salads.
The other cult corner-store pre-party drink vying for Gen Z’s attention is Magnum (pictured below), a £4 Jamaican tonic wine whose single-serve brown-glass bottles have become synonymous with Jamaican dancehall culture. Sales in the UK alone – Magnum’s biggest export market – are estimated to be worth £26.3mn.
To me, the cherry-flavoured, grape-based 16.5 per cent abv sipper tastes like cough medicine. Infused with botanicals, it’s historically had a reputation for boosting virility. But “a shift is happening”, says IWSR analyst Chris Budzik. “In some markets, younger legal-drinking-age men now make up less than half of total consumption.”
Like BuzzBallz, the Campari-owned brand has been a word-of-mouth phenomenon, built on viral campaigns and store takeovers at music events such as the Notting Hill Carnival. But investment is now being dialled up. And the time is right, says Kiilu, “as this is definitely the summer of dancehall coming back to the fore”.
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