For the first time in its 125-year history, Coca-Cola is planning to introduce an alcoholic fizzy drink or alcopop, but you can’t get it in the U.S. Nathan Rousseau Smith has the details.
In its 132-year history, Coca-Cola has produced a panoply of drinks alongside its signature soda, including bottled water, juices, sports beverages and an Indian refreshment described as “spicy,” “mature” and “masculine.”
This year, the company is mixing in booze.
In Japan, a fiercely competitive market where Coca-Cola says it introduces 100 new products each year, the company plans to test a flavored, bubbly drink spiked with alcohol.
Coca-Cola has never before ventured into the so-called alcopop sector. But fizzy drinks made with alcohol, fruit juice and sparkling water or soda, a category known as chu-hi in Japan, are popular across the country.
The new drink is the latest idea from a beverage maker that has expanded to new markets with an array of products as the sugary-soda industry, battered by concerns about its health effects, continues its multi-decade decline. In 2016, Coca-Cola said it unveiled the equivalent of nearly two new products globally every day.
New York Times, excerpt posted on SouthFloridaReporter.com, Mar. 8, 2017
Video by Buzz60/Nathan Rousseau Smith
