America's Fastest Growing Canned Cocktail Isn't A Seltzer, It's This Popular Brand Of Iced Tea Vodka And Lemonades
It’s hardly news that ready-to-drink cocktails are all the rage. Indeed, we’ve been reporting on the trend for 5 years now. But the novel story these days is the dynamic shift within the overarching RTD category, which comprises both malt-based and spirit-based offerings. In short, the latter is growing at a far faster rate than the former. And Surfside is a brand riding these economic waters to great success.
A category leader in iced tea and lemonade-vodka RTDs, the two-year-old label is celebrating its national expansion with five new summer-friendly flavors: Raspberry Lemonade, Strawberry Lemonade, Black Cherry Lemonade, Raspberry Iced Tea and Green Tea. The fruit-forward additions join a wide stable of offerings that are all canned at 4.5% ABV, and typically retail for around $11 per 4-pack.
The independent producer behind the launch began life as part of Stateside Vodka, a Philadelphia-based distillery and cocktail lounge that still thrives in the city today. Initially the founders were canning an unflavored vodka-soda, but were compelled by acute demand for something non-sparkling.
“We realized there was a hole to fill in the RTD category,” recalls Clement Pappas, CEO of Surfside Iced Tea + Vodka. “When we were originally creating Surfside, we knew it had to taste great, be 100 calories or less and have no bubbles. Carbonated drinks can be filling and cause bloat. We also see today’s drinkers gravitate toward tasty alternatives to beer.”
Pappas’ team spent more than a year developing the taste formula. Indeed, it holds 100 calories, 2 grams of sugar and zero bubbles per 12-ounce can. It quickly emerged as a category leader, in part, because when it arrived on shelves in early 2022, there simply weren’t a lot of spirit-based hard teas and lemonades in the category. Yet the thirst was clearly there.
“We thought Surfside was a good idea or we wouldn’t have done it, but we didn’t predict just how much the brand would take off,” adds Pappas. “We grew 563% in just our second year on the market, from about 200,000 cases in 2022 to 1.3 million cases in 2023. It’s been a rocket ship of growth for us.”
Indeed, it’s been ‘to-the-moon’ for much of the canned cocktail segment as of late. While malt-based RTDs still enjoy commanding control of marketshare by volume in the US, spirit-based RTDs are making serious headway—despite facing more stringent obstacles in terms of national distribution.
According to the most recent economic analysis from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, spirits-based RTDs recorded a 16% share of the overall category at the end of 2023 versus 8% in 2021. Movement in the space indicates that today’s drinkers are concerning themselves more and more with the refined elegance of booze-backed cocktails. And thanks to the expansion of Surfside, fans of such have at least five more refreshing options to consider this summer.
