![]() ![]() (Right Coast is a collaboration with Mass Bay Brewing’s Harpoon and Flying Dog Brewery.) “In today’s world, you’d better be exploring beverage opportunities outside of beer.”Ĭraft breweries have long tried building bridges linking beer and other alcohol categories. Matt Brewing Co., makers of Saranac beer and Right Coast Spirits, a ready-to-drink cocktail brand that debuted last summer. To find new customers, “you don’t need another IPA right now,” says Fred Matt, the president of F.X. Taprooms are doubling as cocktail bars where mixed drinks rival beers for creativity, and breweries are developing RTDs that lean into regional favorites like the tequila-packed Texas staple Ranch Water. Breweries are embracing a fighting spirit by aging beer in oak barrels that once held bitters, helping replicate classic cocktails, and making canned Micheladas with custom mixes. Breweries are embracing a fighting spirit by aging beer in oak barrels that once held bitters, helping replicate classic cocktails…įorget conceding to cocktails. Dollar sales of spirits-based RTDs grew by 42 percent in 2021, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, as “consumers gravitated toward RTDs as a convenient way to enjoy their favorite cocktail at home during the height of the pandemic,” president and CEO Chris Swonger said in a statement.įorget conceding to cocktails. Now breweries are contending with a triple whammy of slowing beer sales, increased expenses, and the ascendancy of spirits and convenient ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails. Hard seltzers, carbon dioxide shortages, busted supply chains, and rolling pandemic closures have forced breweries to adjust and adapt to a never-static status quo. Nary a month passes without the brewing industry facing a fresh existential threat. The pomp “helps put people’s brains in the right spot to receive this liquid as a cocktail experience,” says Langton. Last April, the brewery debuted its first two Lightning in a Bottle releases, serving taproom customers the colorful carbonated cocktails in rocks glasses containing crystalline cubes of hand-cut ice. Right: Bottles of Smoke Sting, a variation on the mezcal-based Killer Bee, and Birds of Paradise, a take on the Jungle Bird cocktail.| Photos by Eugene Lee | Photo by Eugene Lee Left: Bottle Logic’s Birds of Paradise, served over ice. Bottle Logic Creative Director Lindsay Langton. “We’re building them with ingredients that you’d find in a traditional cocktail,” Langton says of the drinks that might range from 11 percent to almost 15 percent ABV. Next, Langton blends barrel-aged seltzer with fruit juices and botanicals to create cocktail-inspired drinks such as Smoke Sting, a variation on the mezcal-infused Killer Bee, and the tropical Birds of Paradise is modeled on the rum-driven Jungle Bird. The hard seltzer fast gains tannic complexity and the liquor’s lingering flavor, emerging four or five months later like an ersatz spirit. She starts with a robust hard seltzer, somewhere around 16 to 17 percent ABV, and ages it in barrels that formerly held tequila, rum, and other spirits. ![]() Langton complements Bottle Logic’s Luxology hard seltzer brand with cocktails built from a not-so-spirited approach. But today, “it’s so easy now to find excellent beer,” says creative director Lindsay Langton. The Anaheim, California, brewery’s award-winning barrel-aged stouts and barley wines were a strong draw and differentiator. Maybe five years back, missing cocktails was no big deal. Like most breweries, Bottle Logic lacks a taproom liquor license, meaning mezcal Margaritas and rum-soaked Mai Tais are off the menu.
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