Hard seltzers encourage underage drinking? Don’t be so dramatic

Forget last week’s feud between the Portman Group and Tiny Rebel over the design of the brewer’s Cwtch beer can.

There’s a more insidious booze trend with greater potential to encourage underage drinking. At least, that’s the message from leading medical practitioner Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, director of the Liverpool Centre for Alcohol Research at Liverpool University and chairman of Alcohol Health Alliance UK.

This weekend, he expressed fears about boozy seltzer – alcoholic sparkling water that’s trendy as hell right now, sparked by the sensational rise of White Claw in the US. The low-calorie brand grew year-on-year sales this summer by 283% to $327.7m (£249m) amid massive demand from younger drinkers bored with beer and in search of a healthier alternative.

White Claw isn’t in the UK (at least not yet), but lesser known brands are. Last month, for instance, drinks giant AB InBev launched Mike’s Hard Water. Like its rivals, it comes in a canned range of fruity flavours with an abv of 5%. And that is what’s troubling Gilmore.

“The products are masquerading as sparkling water drinks with fruit flavours when they are as strong as a beer or lager,” Gilmore told The Sunday Times, likening the situation to the alcopops scare of the 1990s.

Back then, it was Hooper’s Hooch and such that fuelled concerns about underage drinking. Children would be attracted by the sweet flavours and cartoon-like marketing, critics warned at the time – not entirely without justification.

Hard seltzers, on the other hand, don’t have quite the same appeal. They don’t contain sugar and are very lightly flavoured. Their packaging is stylish, not childish, and they are clearly labelled as booze. It’s somewhat disingenuous to suggest the drinks are “masquerading” as anything – particularly since they’re yet to incur the Portman Group’s wrath.

Gilmore, one could argue, is being a touch overdramatic. Under-18s aren’t known as big seltzer drinkers. Energy drinks have far greater appeal – being loaded with sugar and caffeine, and not age-restricted by law. Heck, aren’t even RTD cocktails more of a worry? They’re sweet, brightly packaged and widely available. 

Mike’s Hard Water and the like, meanwhile, are a niche prospect. They aren’t listed in any of the big supermarkets. So, it’s difficult to believe right now that such drinks are likely to reverse the dramatic decline in underage drinking reported by the NHS. Nor do they seem a major threat to the sobriety trend that has seen shoppers take home an extra £26m-worth of low and no alcohol options [Kantar 52 w/e 14 July 2019].

But say alcoholic fizzy waters do go mainstream. How could the grocery industry ensure they don’t fall into young hands? Gilmore suggests banning the word “water” in brand names and marketing. Well, that would be one (rather contrived) solution.

The alternative, however, is simpler and more effective: retailers could obey the law by not selling booze to kids.