How Coca-Cola is using Minute Maid to push into alcohol

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Soda and juice giant Coca-Cola is using one of its best-known brands to test the potential of a strategic pivot into the complex alcohol category.

This month, the company debuted canned vodka-infused varieties of its Minute Maid drinks, including pink lemonade and fruit punch, which have 5% alcohol-by-volume. The line joins existing Minute Maid canned cocktails, including wine-based Strawberry Daiquiri and Lime Margarita.

Coca-Cola has pushed deeper into alcohol in recent years, such as its collaboration withJack Daniel’s and the Europe-exclusive launch of Absolut Vodka with Sprite alongside Pernod Ricard. The soda company introduced a subsidiary called Red Tree Beverages in 2023 in order to more easily get its products to market and past regulation.

Rachael Waddell, the senior director of Red Tree Beverages, said the company is working to strike while the iron is hot on the quickly evolving ready-to-drink alcohol space.

“Alcohol ready-to-drink is our first category, it’s all we do and all we participate in,” Waddell said. “We really tap into the existing behaviors and rituals that consumers are already doing with our non-alcoholic products.”

Red Tree’s internal testing identified an opportunity for juice products mixed with spirits, as consumers frequently mix lemonade with liquor at home. While the subsidiary develops and markets the products, it does not distribute alcoholic beverages, according to a report from Brewbound.

According to Waddell, Minute Maid provided a dynamic opportunity as a mixed alcoholic drink because of its “100% brand awareness.” She said the brand’s Vodka Pink Lemonade is the first alcoholic pink lemonade product in the RTD category. Given Minute Maid’s popularity with children, she said the brand made clear on its packaging labels and cans that the drink is only for consumers over 21.

“There’s no fizz and it’s perfect for so many occasions consumers celebrate, particularly in the summer, whether it’s at the ballpark, a tailgate or a barbecue,” Waddell said.

Non-carbonated, juice-based drinks have become a new frontier in the ready-to-drink alcohol space. Coke’s Red Tree is bringing its Minute Maid Spiked drinks to stores amid the rise of several noteworthy competitors in RTD cocktails.

Vodka-infused tea and lemonade brand Surfside rapidly became the second best-selling spirits RTD brand in the U.S. last year after its launch in 2022. Other players in the canned vodka cocktail space include Sprinter vodka sodas, co-founded by reality star Kylie Jenner, and Boston Beer’s Sun Cruise vodka iced teas.

The overall RTD cocktail space is projected to be worth $3.6 billion by 2033, with vodka offerings making up over 19% of those drinks in 2023, according to Future Market Insights.