RTDs have bucked the downward trend in alcoholic drinks sales – and in an unprecedented way, reports Oli Dodd
Anyone familiar with alcohol market trends reporting will recognise the handful of headlines that have defined the genre since the demise of the Covid recovery bubble. A certain generational cohort has moderated its drinking, a certain category’s forecast has been downgraded, a certain major historic market has opted to go entirely teetotal.
The picture of how the world is changing the way it drinks is visible in the year-on-year reporting from the IWSR. Taking 2016 as the start point and indexing the changes reported by the market analyst, total global spirits volumes have declined by about 6%, beer by roughly 10%, while wine, the hardest hit of the major categories, has fallen by 17%.
For each category, the pattern is relatively similar. Modest growth or decline of no more than about 1% per year until 2019 and a pandemic-shaped crash in 2020 followed by a recovery that lasted until 2022 before accelerated declines set in.
But while the traditional major drinks categories have shared similar struggles, RTDs have shown an entirely different trend. Since 2016, pre-packaged RTDs have soared by 76%. In 2025, the IWSR reported that the category reached a billion nine-litre cases and now accounts for 13% of total beverage alcohol volume in the US, up from 6% in 2019.
“RTD success isn’t driven by any single factor,” explains Zach Poelma, senior vice president of commercial intelligence at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits. “The category benefitted from a format that aligned with evolving consumer needs, but the brands that broke through combined that advantage with differentiated positioning and strong cultural relevance. The format created the foundation. RTDs offer convenience, portability and an easy entry point into alcohol, making them naturally accessible to a broad range of drinkers. However, format alone doesn’t explain why some brands vastly outperform others.”
For every market, there are countless factors that have combined to create that overall shape of decline. Supply chains, wars, tariffs, inflation – but something that was largely agreed upon was that between 2015-2018, when the oldest members of Generation Z reached legal drinking age in most markets, they simply weren’t engaging with alcohol in the same way as previous generations. That’s a claim now debunked by IWSR analysis, and RTDs seem to have found a solution to some of those friction points for some younger drinkers.
Buzzballz phenomenon
It’s a phenomenon perhaps no better typified today than by the Sazerac-owned Buzzballz. The brand, originally created as a master’s degree project, was launched by Dallas-based high school teacher Merilee Kick in 2009. In 2024 it was acquired by Sazerac Company for approximately half a billion dollars and has since gone on to achieve an almost unprecedented level of virality first in the US and later in the UK, where NIQ reports it grew in volume by 952% and value by 827% in the year to April 2026.
“We’ve focused on creating moments that people genuinely want to share,” says president of Buzzballz Jess Scheerhorn. “When people are talking about Buzzballz, it’s because they’ve had an experience worth sharing rather than because we’ve chased virality.
“Many legal drinking age Gen Z consumers are drinking with more intentionality, placing greater value on quality, convenience and genuine experiences they can enjoy with friends. Buzzballz fits naturally into those occasions with quality flavours and a personality that doesn’t take itself too seriously.”
While Buzzballz claims to have not chased virality, the brand has proven to be fluent in the language of the internet. In 2023, a mockumentary-style digital series starring comedian Blake Anderson called Why Are They Round? was a finalist at the Shorty Awards for digital and social media. In 2025, the brand launched a basketball-shaped bottle large enough to fit 17 regular serves alongside NBA player Lonzo Ball. A similar three-litre, globe-shaped bottle was launched for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Earlier this month, UK advertising watchdog The Portman Group upheld a complaint against the brand that a 10ft capsule toy vending machine on London’s Southbank containing RTD samples alongside 4,000 prizes including Labubu-style dolls and £5,000 in cash “would strongly resonate with under-18s who would find a large version of a toy/sweet machine to be very engaging and eye-catching”. Sazerac UK responded saying that participation was strongly restricted to adults.
“Many of today’s leading RTD brands were built around occasions, flavour and lifestyle rather than traditional alcohol heritage,” says Poelma. “The most successful RTD brands have been deliberate about aligning themselves with the media platforms, personalities and occasions that matter most to younger consumers. In fact, RTD dollars generated by new-to-world brands are roughly three times larger than those generated by established brand extensions, despite a similar number of launches.”
A departure from traditional alcohol heritage is a change of speed for the marketing departments of brand owners that have spent generations emphasising the value of legacy. But the format has become an opportunity for groups struggling to find growth elsewhere.
In April, the Financial Times reported that, despite a reticence to build within the category so as not to dilute its profit margin, Diageo chief executive Sir Dave Lewis was “betting big on canned cocktails” to return the company to growth.
At the company’s Capital Markets Day at the beginning of August, chief strategy officer Hannah Brooks outlined the position further.
“Despite recent pressure, especially in the US, spirits, including RTD has been a long-term growth,” said Brooks. “Through this period and especially most recently, RTDs have been a really significant growth contributor.
“Back in Q1, we spent some time out with consumers across a range of markets, and it was really telling in those conversations hearing the trade-offs people were making about holidays, about socialising trips with friends, even about how they were prioritising different house improvements versus what they might have done in the past.
“But what was also really interesting is they were trying to protect their engagement with alcohol. People were looking for happy hours to make trips to the pub more affordable; they were really looking at small formats, which you will hear us talk about today, but it was really notable how people were trying to stay in the brands they love but they were looking for a smaller format.
“Interestingly, when they were looking at RTDs, which many were, they were comparing to the price in the pub and relative to a price in the pub or a bar that RTD was very affordable.”
In his address, Lewis reiterated how important RTDs would become for the group.
“A number of [people] have said to me before, ‘do you think you can win in RTDs?’,” he said.
“We are in the fastest-growing part of the market and are committed to do it. We have to do more, but we see RTDs as very much part of the spirit occasion and that is a big change for us.”
Canned cocktails aren’t the first instance of the RTD category breaking containment and becoming a cultural phenomenon. In the late ’90s, alcopops like Bacardi Breezer, WKD and Smirnoff Ice were each selling over a million nine-litre cases in the UK, enough to spark a moral panic about advertising binge drinking to people below the legal drinking age.
Boom and bust
More recently hard seltzers boomed in the US, growing by 130% in volume in 2020 and more than 300 new brands launched in the US in the year to July 2021 according to the IWSR. But the category has since undergone a large-scale contraction and slipped out of the spotlight.
“I believe [cocktail RTDs are more durable than hard seltzers] because the underlying drivers are fundamentally different,” says Poelma.
“Hard seltzers grew rapidly on a relatively narrow set of benefits, including low calories, simplicity and better-for-you positioning. As the category matured, it became increasingly crowded, differentiation declined, and consumers began experiencing flavour fatigue.
“Cocktail RTDs are benefitting from a much broader value proposition. They offer greater flavour exploration, stronger connections to recognisable cocktails, more premium experiences, wider abv ranges, and relevance across a broader range of occasions. Rather than relying on a single trend, they participate in several consumer trends simultaneously and the innovation pipeline also appears more resilient.”
Canned cocktail RTDs going the same way as the alcopop or hard seltzer is something that the Diageo strategists clearly feel comfortable won’t happen. Whether they have the heft to reverse the course of the industry’s largest vessel is a different matter.
