Familiar category offers opportunities to introduce new flavors to consumers

Lemonade, the longtime star of summertime beverage consumption, is leveraging its appeal to help other beverages shine.

“Given today’s inflationary climate, consumers will likely reach for flavor profiles they know they will enjoy,” explains Anna Fabbri, food and drink analyst at Chicago-based Mintel. The comfort and familiarity of lemonade’s flavor allow consumers to explore new beverage products or categories without taking much risk in terms of taste.

This is particularly true in the alcohol beverages category, where more than half of consumers are interested in lemonade flavors, particularly for spring and summer drinking occasions, Fabbri says. This gives people new to alcohol beverages in general or new to a particular alcohol category a comfortable stepping stone.

Lemonade flavor can be found all across the alcohol market, including in new products such as Jiant’s Summer Snowcone Berry Lemonade hard kombucha and Boochcraft Hibiscus Lemonade organic hard kombucha; Molson Coors’ Simply Spiked Lemonade; Seagram’s Strawberry Lemonade Vodka; Jose Cuervo’s ready-to-pour Peach Lemonade Margarita; White Claw REFRSHR Lemonade hard seltzers in Limón, Blood Orange, Blackberry and Strawberry varieties; and Crown Royal’s limited-edition Whisky Lemonade ready-to-drink cocktail.

The lemonade-iced tea flavor duo also is trending in popularity in the alcohol segment, as seen in Rutter’s limited-edition Spiked Tea Cooler, Lover Boy’s Strawberry Lemonade sparkling hard tea and Molson Coors’ Arnold Palmer Spiked Lite flavored malt beverage with only 100 calories and 2 grams of sugar in each 12-ounce serving.

The lemonade flavor also is prevalent across other beverage categories. For example, in energy drinks, lemonade is making an appearance in Corona, Calif.-based Monster Beverage Corp.’s Juice Monster Aussie Style Lemonade. In carbonated soft drinks, last summer PepsiCo Inc., Purchase, N.Y., released MTN DEW Spark with raspberry lemonade flavor. Austin, Texas-based Waterloo Sparkling Water Corp. also added a Blackberry Lemonade variety earlier this year.

Read the full article on Beverage Industry.