Move over, hard seltzer
New premixed cocktails could be a game changer
CLINTONVILLE – Supper Club Cocktails Lite premixed cocktails are made with two shots of Wisconsin innovation and have a real chance at appealing to hard seltzer zealots.
Each 12-ounce slim can of Garden Party (vodka, watermelon, cucumber and mint), Gins and Roses (gin, raspberry, lemon and rosewater) and Bramble On (a rum-based blackberry Mojito) ready-to-drink cocktails holds just 1 gram of carbs. The original White Claw hard seltzers have 2 grams of carbs.
The explosion in hard seltzer sales in the past few years has often been attributed to consumers seeing the malt beverages as a healthier alcoholic drink because of lower alcohol by volume, calories and carbs while not being as heavy as beer.
Supper Club Lite could be a game changer in the ready-to-drink cocktail market, said Arty’s Legendary Cocktails co-owner Tim Pappin, because the cocktails fit the profile of what reportedly makes hard seltzers popular.
And Supper Club Lite’s flavors come from real fruit juices, said Kim Anderson, NewTree Fruit Company director of new business development. Removing sugars from fruit juices is part of a patented process from De Pere-based NewTree,
There’s no missing the berry, melon or mint flavors in Supper Club Lite cocktails, nor is there a sugar-laden heaviness.
For drinkers less concerned about carbs, Supper Club Cocktails will have four vintage drinks: gin rickey, bloody mary and two Old-Fashioneds. Arty’s has been bottling Old-Fashioneds and bloody marys for the nearly a decade.
An unexpected venture begins at a bar
Launching a second line of premixed cocktails was the furthest thing from the minds of Pappin and his nephew and Arty’s
co-owner, Ryan Mijal, as they sat in a supper club watching a bartender mix Old-Fashioneds.
Muddling oranges and cherries and the rest of the time invested to making Wisconsin’s best known cocktail isn’t compatible with an on-demand world, Pappin and Mijal concluded. If they could make an Old-Fashioned that didn’t require more time or effort than opening a bottle, they’d be trendsetters.
Nailing the recipe involved trying a few different mixes and ingredients each night for about six months.
With recipe in hand, they called distilleries and bottlers to package their Old-Fashioneds. Distilleries couldn’t handle carbonization nor bottle singleserve sizes. Co-packers wouldn’t bottle less than 10,000 cases per run.
Pappin and Mijal were confident their Old-Fashioneds would be successful, just not 10,000 cases confident.
The work of bottling single-serve OldFashioneds moved from making phone calls to making specialized machinery in a garage. Then work moved to a nearby abandoned restaurant. They bought equipment to measure alcohol and custom-built specialized equipment to bring bottled Old-Fahioneds to the masses.
Premixed cocktails of the 1970s and 1980s were a good idea — poorly executed. So much so that those runs pretty much shelved the ready-to-drink cocktails market.
“There was a time when prepared cocktails were seen as low quality, poor tasting, high in sugar and low in alcohol,” said Carolyn Lemoine, director of alcohol research at Beverage Marketing Corporation.
Making a tasty ready-to-drink cocktail wouldn’t be enough to be successful, Pappin said, they needed to overcome the bad reputation.
In July 2012, having quit their fulltime jobs, Pappin and Mijal bottled their first batch of Old-Fashioneds.
Arty’s was launched with Brandy sweet and whiskey sour made in 72-case batches.
“We bottled those by hand,” said Pappin. “We had 11 people — family and friends — helping bottle in a deserted café. We were carrying cases through the doorway.”
They soon moved operations into a building that had once been a welding shop and began self distributing Arty’s.
Premixed cocktails boosted by the pandemic
While launching Arty’s involved more hands-on work than planned, they had the market mostly to themselves. But competitors soon followed.
SoulBoxer Cocktail in Milwaukee began bottling Old-Fashioneds in 2015 and recently contracted with a California bottler to launch online sales in 32 states. Plain Spoke Cocktails in Madison added Brandy sweet Old-Fashioneds in 2019 to its lineup of canned cocktails.
National companies are competing for shelf space in the ready-to-drink cocktail market.
U.S. ready-to-drink cocktail sales shot up 55% in 2020 to $1.5 billion, Lemoine said, and growth has continued into 2021 with volume jumping another 40% already.
Closures and reduced seating at bars and restaurants throughout the COVID-19 pandemic had more folks mixing drinks at home. Premixed cocktails benefited for several reasons, according to Lemoine:
Ease of use. If the most searched cocktail recipe (not just during the pandemic) is rum and Coke, it’s easy to understand the appeal of premixed drinks that eliminate muddling and measuring more than two ingredients.
Cost-efficient. Single servings eliminate the need to buy a bottle of mixer to only use a few ounces when making a drink.
Portable for outdoor gatherings. Meeting outside was recommended for much of the pandemic.
At-home bartenders used these cocktails as a base to be amped up with additional alcohol.
Arty’s finds ways to expand
Bottling premixed Old-Fashioneds for sale in Wisconsin proved successful for Arty’s. Outside Wisconsin — it’s a tougher sell. Wisconsin accounts for 85% of Arty’s sales even with distribution throughout five Midwest states.
As Pappin and Mijal reassessed the ready-to-drink landscape, they didn’t see another manufacturer selling OldFashioneds in cans.
Cans would allow them to get their drinks into venues and places where bottles couldn’t go, like arenas, stadiums and beaches. They decided to buy a canner. The new brand was called Supper Club Cocktails that would use a ’60s/’70s vibe in design and packaging to promote the well-known drinks. Inside the cans would be drinks made from new recipes.
Pappin said the goal with Arty’s has been to make an affordable cocktail,
while Supper Club Cocktails are intended to fit the premium or craft category.
When NewTree wanted to sell its desugared fruit juices in stores, Anderson said, the minimum order size from copackers was cost-prohibitive. Arty’s ability to accommodate smaller runs allowed NewTree Fruit to release Edit Juice in 2016.
Chad Anderson founded NewTree Fruit in 2013 with a process that removes 95% of naturally occurring sugars from fruit juice. Yeast does the work of eating the sugars while leaving most of the fruit’s nutrition and flavor behind.
Uses for the juice go beyond cocktails. NewTree Fruit has been added to yogurts, Anderson said, and can be dehydrated into powder for use in baked goods and other foods.
Pappin and Anderson connected on the idea of using NewFruit’s juices to make a lite cocktail.
Credit for developing the recipes goes to NewTree, which brought in nearly two dozen combinations of fruit juices with spirits to find three that stood out. Pairing fruit flavors with the spirits tasting notes was key, Anderson said. Vodka with lemon and raspberry didn’t work, but that duo paired perfectly with gin.
There’s a good chance more Supper Club Lite cocktails will come to market. Pappin doesn’t know if any of the first three Supper Club Lite flavors will become permanent or seasonal or disappear, but he’s confident that cocktails made with real distilled spirits and fruit juice will be hit.