Blithe Spirits for the Sober Set

By Stephen Koepp

Thirsty for the latest, coolest thing? Something fruity and fizzy, with only a playful amount of kick? The alcoholic-beverage industry has plenty of new suggestions: a picnic cooler full of concoctions freshly invented for the moderate but merry '80s. Here is an upscale-looking bottle of Seagram's Golden Spirits in a flavor called "mandarin vodka"; it tastes like a spritzy cocktail but contains little more alcohol than a beer. How about a Wineberry Sausalito Sling, with a flavor suggestive of ginger ale and bubble gum, or a Calvin Cooler in citrus flavor, with real fruit pulp floating in it?

When it comes to alcoholic beverages, U.S. consumers have developed a taste for sweetness and light, and the liquor, wine and beer industries (total 1985 sales: more than $50 billion) are scrambling to satisfy them. The result: a head-spinning array of exotic mixtures, handy packaging and zingy promotion that is challenging many old loyalties. "We are embarking on a flavor explosion in the alcoholic-beverage industry," says Paul Connors, co-founder of a Massachusetts-based beverage-marketing firm called Locon.

The innovations are designed to reverse a sales slump caused by the continuing U.S. trend toward sobriety. The combination of health consciousness, concern about drunk driving and the young-professional work ethic has given the alcoholic-beverage industries their toughest test since Prohibition. Total consumption of beer, wine and liquor, which climbed an average 3.3% a year during 1975-80, rose only .4% last year, according to Impact, a trade publication.

At first many beverage companies were paralyzed by the problem, having successfully produced the same old-favorite brands year after year. Now suddenly the liquor, beer and wine companies seem to have hit on the right formula for keeping their customers in a drinking mood. They have decided to win over the members of the baby-boom generation, who were raised on soda pop and feel no compulsion to acquire a taste for Scotch, with an outpouring of wine and liquor coolers, fruity cordials, sparkling wines and cocktails-in-a- can.

Michael Crete and R. Stuart Bewley, two entrepreneurs in Lodi, Calif., helped get the wave rolling when they invented California Cooler in 1981, taking their recipe from traditional beach-party punches made of white wine, fruit juice and soda. By the time they sold their business last September to Louisville's Brown-Forman distillers for $146 million, more than 75 imitators had appeared on the scene. This year an estimated 70 million cases of wine coolers will be sold, up some 72% from 1985, making a total market of more than $1.2 billion.

Why such a cooler splash? Young people appreciate the familiarity of the flavors, ranging from raspberry to chocolate, in contrast to the arcane varieties of table wine. Another attraction is the 5% alcohol content, about half the potency of regular wine. "We're showing people they can still have a good time partying and not get blown away," says Chuck Blank, marketing manager for California Cooler. Yet another selling point is perceived . healthfulness, even though most coolers have as many calories as a similar- size can of regular soda. The beverage appeals particularly to women, who buy about 70% of all coolers sold, yet it has managed to escape the stigma of wimpiness.

Whereas the original California Cooler was still the sales leader last year, big companies are crashing the party. California's Gallo, the largest winery in the world, is expected to take over the No. 1 position this year with its heavily advertised Bartles & Jaymes citrus cooler. Customers have been lured by its homespun TV ads, in which laconic Non-Actors Dave Rufkahr, an Oregon farmer, and Richard Maugg, a California contractor, portray the fictional characters of Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes.

Many companies have introduced competitors based on other alcoholic beverages. Detroit's Stroh Brewery produces White Mountain, a cooler made from malt and flavorings. Champale makes a similarly derived cooler in pineapple- coconut and three other varieties. The crowding has already produced the beginnings of a shake-out, which prompted Coors brewery to yank its Colorado Chiller off the market last February.

Besides weighing in with wine coolers in three flavors, Seagram last month began test-marketing an unusual liquor-based hybrid called Golden Spirits, which is flavored with natural fruit essences to produce mixtures like peach- melba rum. "They are selling extraordinarily well," says House of Seagram President Edgar Bronfman Jr. Rival distillers are blending other cocktails. Connecticut's Heublein, maker of Smirnoff vodka, is test-marketing Tropic Freezers, which turn into frozen drinks like strawberry daiquiris after about six hours in a customer's freezer.

Since moderation-minded customers often shy away from buying binge-size bottles of hard stuff, some distillers have repackaged their products as premixed cocktails. While they have tried this before with limited success, they now plan to offer more varieties in slicker containers. Chicago's Jim Beam, maker of the top-selling bourbon, has introduced single-serving cans in which its flagship brand is premixed with lemonade and other soft drinks. Winemakers have caught on to picnic-style packaging as well. Yago Sant'gria, the Spanish wine, now comes in six-packs of the same cardboard containers (straws included) that normally contain fruit juice for children's lunch boxes.

Yet nothing has gone down quite so smoothly as an improbable hit called DeKuyper's Original Peachtree Schnapps, a liqueur that was introduced in 1984 by New York's National Distillers. The company, suffering from falling sales of its Old Crow and Old Grand-Dad bourbons, was looking for something more up- to-date when one of its researchers came up with the idea while trimming peach trees in his backyard. With almost no advertising, the low-alcohol (48 proof) cordial took off faster than any other liquor in the industry's history, selling almost 1.4 million cases in the first half of 1986. More than 30 other brands of peach schnapps have now flooded the market. The popularity of the peach extends into the wine business. Riunite, the Italian wine brand, had an instant hit last month when it introduced Natural Peach wine.

Not all efforts to lure light-minded consumers have succeeded. One notable flop has been low-alcohol beer, or LA, which contains about half the alcohol of regular brews. Introduced in 1983 by a small Cincinnati brewery, Hudepohl, and later rolled out by the major brands, LA sales slumped 7% last year to 500,000 bbl., or only .1% of the total beer market. One possible reason is that drinkers who are worried about their weight already have low-calorie choices like Miller Lite, while consumers who want kickless beer can turn to nonalcoholic ones, including Moussy and Kingsbury.

The trend toward lighter beverages seems on its face like healthy progress, in contrast to the heavy martini consumption of the 1950s and '60s. But some critics of the new, syrupy drinks believe that the beverages cloyingly mask their alcoholic content and thus their danger. Says Michael Vitucci, public relations counsel for the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union: "In a sense, it is a wolf in sheep's clothing. People will feel it's like drinking lemonade." Seagram's Bronfman, of course, disagrees, "We make it crystal clear that these are alcoholic beverages and must be handled as such. It's not fair to say that we encourage abuse by introducing new products." Innovation is a strategy that beverage makers will stoutly defend, since the market today belongs to the lightest, the sweetest and the newest.

With reporting by Cristina Garcia/San Francisco and Raji Samghabadi/New York