‘They're not chic!' How did BuzzBallz become the undisputed drink of the summer?

The Guardian

19 hours ago

When Merrilee Kick invented BuzzBallz in 2009, she was a 47-year-old teacher from Texas who needed to make some money fast. 'I was about to get a divorce and was terrified of becoming homeless,' she says. 'I was a high-school teacher not making enough money to survive, much less put two sons through college.' She had the opportunity to do an MBA through a teacher-enrichment programme, and came up with the idea for BuzzBallz one hot afternoon while marking homework. 'I chose booze because it thrives in good times, and thrives even more in bad times,' she says.
Kick decided to make a cocktail that came in a plastic container rather than glass that could break, and was inspired by the shape of a snow globe she had brought back from Sweden. Finding the funds to manufacture her product proved challenging. She was turned down for business loans by every bank in Dallas, until one accepted the cows from her mum's ranch and her old car as collateral.
Since then, BuzzBallz has grown to become the US's biggest-selling single-serve premixed cocktail, and the fastest-growing ready-to-drink brand in terms of sales volume in the UK. In 2022, the company was bought by Sazerac in an estimated $500m deal, which made Kick the 89th-richest self-made woman in the US. In January 2025, Kick and her family stepped back from running the company – now valued at more than $1bn.
BuzzBallz arrived in the UK in 2022, and in the past year sales have boomed. In one day in London, I spoke to students, lawyers and a group of festivalgoers, all swigging the vividly coloured drinks. You may have seen the packaging – bright, round, gaudy – on shelves in corner shops and supermarkets, clutched at house parties or spilling out of the bins in your local park.
'The buzz has been largely driven by organic discovery, primarily in independent retailers and via word of mouth on social media,' says Jake Wenz, the CEO of Sazerac. 'It has been incredible to watch BuzzBallz become a cult favourite among consumers in the UK, specifically gen Z.' And it's not just BuzzBallz that are booming in popularity with this age group. A survey showed that in March 2025, 76% of UK gen Z consumers had drunk alcohol in the last six months, up from 66% in 2023.
Strawberry 'Rita, Tequila 'Rita and Chili Mango are Britain's favourite flavours, according to Wenz. My nearest off-licence started selling them four months ago, and the shopkeeper tells me that young people can't get enough of them. 'It's surreal,' says Kick. 'What started as a wild idea has become a global party-starter.'
'People my age are either buying a home and getting married,' says Freya McCann, 29, who works in sales in Edinburgh, 'or they're saying: 'Let's get some BuzzBallz and have a good time.'' McCann recently tried her first BuzzBallz, a Strawberry 'Rita, at a friend's party and now loves them. She thinks they've become popular in the UK because 'you can get them at a corner shop, or before you get on the train'. They're convenient, she says, 'but they're also quite silly'. For McCann, there's something nostalgic about the drink, reminding her of school discos. 'They used to sell these little drinks and you'd feel so hyper.' With about five teaspoons of sugar in each BuzzBallz, not far off the maximum daily recommendation for a woman, it's no wonder.
Like everything that was all the rage in the 90s and early 00s – from low-rise jeans to thin eyebrows – premixed drinks and alcopops are making a return. After a 10-year hiatus, Reef, the vodka, orange and passion fruit drink, was relaunched in 2024. Bacardi Breezer, also discontinued a decade ago, made a return this summer. In June, Smirnoff Ice launched a new advertising campaign across 20 countries. Nik Jhangiani, the interim chief executive of the drinks company Diageo, which makes Smirnoff Ice, told the Telegraph this month that it now has a 'huge opportunity' to win over gen Z.
In the mid-90s, when alcopops first came on the market, critics said they were being deliberately marketed to teenagers who were below the legal drinking age. 'The thing that really bothered people about alcopops was that they are so palatable,' says Andrew Misell, a director at Alcohol Change UK. 'We know from looking at statements from some of the drink companies that they were aware that if you want to sell more alcohol, you need to appeal to people who don't like traditionally bitter or sharp drinks,' such as wine or beer. In 1996, the government slapped a 40% tax on alcopops and some supermarkets pulled them from their shelves. TV adverts for WKD and Smirnoff Ice were banned for encouraging under-18s to drink. By 2013, the ready-to-drink sector, which at its peak in 2005 was worth £1bn, had shrunk by half.
Misell doesn't think there's anything especially wrong with alcopops or premixed cocktails making a return: 'They don't have any sort of extra-dangerous ingredients in them; they don't tend to be particularly strong alcoholically.' But, he says, they are 'easy to drink a lot of and they may appeal to younger drinkers who have a sweet palate'.
Nick Lonergan, a 29-year-old Australian who moved to London two years ago and works in customer relations for a fashion brand, had his first taste of BuzzBallz at a house party four months ago. 'I had a sip and then I ran down to the store and bought about five of them,' he says. He likes the fact that they are easy to fit in a bag, which makes them 'the perfect drink for a party'.
Florence Langford, a 30-year-old Italian-Scottish marketing executive living in Manchester, thinks they're perfect before a night out or at a festival. 'They're not chic,' she says. 'But they are that drink of the summer.' The appeal for her is the packaging, which is fun, trashy and toxic-looking. 'I probably just go for the most obnoxious colour over the taste, if I'm honest,' she says.
There are two types of consumers for these kinds of drinks, says Matthew Bulcroft, the marketing director of Global Brands, which owns Hooch and Reef: 'The nostalgia-chasers – the over-30s who either remember it from their parents drinking it or actually consuming it themselves.' They make up about 65% of Hooch's market. The rest are finding the drink for the first time: 'Either because the 90s and 00s are cool again, or just because they want an easy drink that is nice and refreshing and won't get them too drunk,' says Bulcroft.
Since 2022, the consumption of alcohol-free drinks has risen, with Mintel revealing that 41% of UK adults have drunk low- or no-alcohol beer, wine, cider, spirits or cocktails in the past three months. The manufacturers of drinks such as Hooch and Reef have responded by creating drinks that are lower in alcohol: once about 6% ABV, they are now 3.4%. Misell says that while there is a cohort of under-25s who don't drink at all, that 'doesn't mean that the rest of the under-25s are problem-free when it comes to alcohol'.
That could explain the popularity of BuzzBallz with gen Z. 'They're generally having one or two as a precursor to a night out, or it's an indulgent treat for the train,' says Bulcroft. Gen Z and millennials rate the cost of living as their top concern, with 52% of both generations reporting that they live from one payday to the next. According to a 2025 survey by Deloitte, many young people will be looking for more cost-effective ways of socialising. Since the beginning of 2020, more than 2,000 pubs have closed in England and Wales, in part due to rising costs and declining consumer spending.
BuzzBallz cost from £2.99 in Aldi, which started stocking them this May, to £4.99. At 13.5% ABV, they are certainly not low alcohol.
Felicity Dunstan, who is finishing off a Choc Tease with her friends Carlo-Gino, 27, and Emil James, 23, in a London park, says she first saw BuzzBallz on TikTok, where there are more than 50,000 videos of people taste-testing them. In a viral video to her 991,000 followers, the influencer Heather Bowling drinks a Chili Mango before a night out in Manchester, a voiceover of Samantha Jones from Sex and the City in the background. There's a #buzzballchallenge to see how people react to drinking them.
'People litter them a lot, so you see them around,' says James. 'It's actually really good advertising. They're everywhere.' Carlo-Gino chimes in: 'But put them in the bin, guys.' BuzzBallz say they are packaged in 100% recyclable PET plastics.
Are BuzzBallz actually any good? With the help of a few friends, I give them a go. We buy all six of the flavours stocked at my local shop. The Espresso Martini is watery and tastes like a strong black filter coffee, but it's not bad. If I needed a pick-me-up on the way to a club, I'd probably give it another go.
The Choc Tease is creamy and has a subtle hint of vodka – it tastes a bit like Baileys. The Pornstar Martini, made with vodka and passion fruit juice, tastes weirdly synthetic, as does the Strawberry 'Rita with tequila and vodka. The Chili Mango, also with a tequila and vodka base, is my favourite. It's very sugary but has a little kick from the jalapeños.
All my friends were keen on the containers, until it came to finishing the last sip. The spherical shape means you have to tilt your head right back to drain it.
Langford says she has noticed the alcopop revival – she's seen Hooch around and is looking forward to trying WKD's Irn-Bru flavour. She thinks BuzzBallz are fun but is just as happy to buy premixed Moth cocktails or a canned Cîroc Vodka Spritz. But the drinks are new and exciting for Lonergan, who didn't grow up drinking alcopops in Sydney. 'There's no nostalgia attached. It's like I'm living in the here and now. In the BuzzBallz era.'