Ready-to-drink cocktail start-up companies of every type are benefitting from the hard seltzer boom. As new RTDs pop up all the time, already established RTD companies are also seeing growth in consumer interest.
In an exclusive interview with Hard Seltzer News, Andrew Rodbell, co-founder of Post Meridiem Spirits, spoke about how his RTD company fits in with the rise of hard seltzers and RTDs in general. Post Meridiem produces a line of full-strength, recognizable cocktail RTDs made with authentic ingredients — a bit of a departure from the low alcohol standard we’ve seen with hard seltzer RTDs.
“I’ll start off by saying that spirit-based, full-strength cocktails like ours and low alcohol ready to drinks like a hard seltzer are for different occasions,” Rodbell said.
Cocktail RTDs are also taking up a different segment of market share in the alcoholic beverage category.
“I think there’s a pattern to how people discover new categories and mature as drinkers, so I see hard seltzers are clearly cannibalizing beer — meaning consumers are leaving beer to go to hard seltzers,” Rodbell said. “Then, I see them kind of moving from malt-based hard seltzers to more authentic spirit-based hard seltzers.”
While hard seltzers are doing the work of pulling beer drinkers into the RTD category, spirit-based RTDs offer further options for consumers to branch out into once they’ve been hooked.
“I think it’s an easy jump to go from there to say the consumers who enjoy spirit-based hard seltzers will likely enjoy a spirit-based cocktail, and Post Meridiem will be there to catch those consumers who are on that journey,” Rodbell said.
The rise of health and wellness in the alcohol category also appears to contribute to the growing popularity of hard seltzers and premium RTDs.
“There’s almost two forms of health consciousness; one is calorie avoidance, meaning people are looking for lower calories and that’s the driving factor as they move away from beer,” Rodbell explained. “The other is chemical avoidance, so people who are moving away from artificial ingredients to genuine ingredients like what we do at Post Meridiem.”
So, just how does Rodbell feel about hard seltzers?
“I’m happy to ride the coattails of the hard seltzers,” Rodbell said. “It’ll bring more people into the canned and ready to drink category in general.”
Rodbell expressed excitement in being able to take part in the consumer journey from beer to spirits. Despite how popular low alcohol hard seltzers are, the company’s full strength is definitely not a weakness.
“I’m just glad we’re differentiated with full-strength authentic ingredient cocktails even though we have a few fast followers, and I do expect more,” Rodbell said.
Rodbell said he is very optimistic about the future of RTDs both off-premise and on-premise, especially RTDs like Post Meridiem that don’t fit neatly into the hard seltzer mold.
“I feel like this is just an emerging category, and I think that, again, just the attention this whole category has been getting is good for everybody,” Rodbell said.
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