Soon, consumers may ditch their home stash of vodka and tonic in favor of clean or “naked” hard seltzers, void of fruit flavorings. 

Suzie’s Organic Hard Seltzer is releasing to the market a unique seltzer offering — a clean hard seltzer base that features no added flavorings. In an exclusive interview with Hard Seltzer News, Suzie’s CEO Chris Barhyte spoke about the brand’s Naked Hard Seltzer.

Inspiration to package and sell an unflavored seltzer came from Barhyte’s general observations at stores and in on-premise locations.

“I was in a grocery store and they had a huge display of tonics just as mixers,” said Barhyte. “One of the big things that I see in bars is where people will mix if it’s on tap; they’ll take the seltzer and mix it with a vodka or something.”

With the naked seltzer, Barhtye saw a simple and convenient way to bring this option to home bars, allowing consumers to get creative by adding fresh citrus, herbs, or fresh juices to make their own unique seltzer cocktails.     

“We already have the base, so basically it’s kind of your initial base before you add some flavoring, so let’s just do that flavor,” Barhyte said. “That’s where it came from.”

Suzie’s Naked Hard Seltzer is 5% ABV, 100 calories, 0 sugar, 0 carbs, and gluten free.  While the company doesn’t yet have national distribution, Total Wine in many states offers Suzie’s lineup of hard seltzer.  Availability includes its home state of Oregon, as well as Colorado, Idaho, New Jersey, Washington, and Wyoming.

Marketing Challenges

Since they already had the base recipe nailed to begin with, Barhyte said the main challenge with the development of the naked seltzer was really about how the brand should market it. 

“People have to know what to do with it — even though a ton of people that you talk to and even a lot of companies talk about how you mix [with] a seltzer and you use [seltzer] as a mixer,” Barhyte explained.

So — what are some of the pros of using a naked hard seltzer rather than mixing a non-alcoholic seltzer or tonic with a vodka? Barhyte had a quick answer. 

“This just gives you a clean base to start with, and the other advantage is just low sugar.”

Low Sugar, High Returns

All of Suzie’s Organic Hard Seltzer offerings now include zero sugar.

“When we originally launched and did some of our stuff, we originally had some sugar in our product, but after the first couple of months we [sic] continued to send it to a lab and basically we’re zero/zero now — zero sugar zero carbs,” said Barhyte.

In comparison, many tonics contain significant amounts of sugar and carbs. Other sorts of cocktail mixers and pre-made cocktails also often contain tons of added sugar and carbs.    

“[Seltzer] is way better than having a tonic where you’re at a lot more sugar in a tonic than you are in a seltzer,” said Barhyte. “So [with the naked hard seltzer] you can have a base that’s just no carbs, no sugar — it’s a great option for mixing drinks.” 

Simple Solution for Off-Premise

Consumers looking for a more convenient way to enjoy a classic unadulterated vodka soda type beverage may gravitate towards this clean, malt-based option. This is especially true for off-premise situations where toting around separate bottles of vodka and mixers isn’t practical. 

Best of all, the naked hard seltzer gives Suzie’s an opportunity to show off how confident they are in their simple, clean base. 

“One of the biggest challenges in the seltzer world is just cleaning the base up, just making sure that [within] the whole process of brewing you’re not creating an aftertaste and that you’re doing the filtering right,” said Barhyte. “It’s an art.”

Stephanie Meade
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