THE GIST
On March 20, spirits giant Sazerac announced it would acquire BuzzBallz, a Texas-based brand that turned $3.50 spherical cocktails into millions in annual sales. It’s a huge acquisition, even for Sazerac, which owns household-name spirits brands including Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, Southern Comfort, and Buffalo Trace Bourbon, as BuzzBallz is reportedly worth $1 billion. BuzzBallz brought in about $200 million in retail last year across wine- and spirit-based ready-to-drink cocktails, about five times more than Sazarac brands in those segments. BuzzBallz is currently owned by parent company Southern Champion, whose portfolio also includes Pelican Harbor Rum and Uptown Cocktails. Sazerac will acquire all of Southern Champion; financial terms were not disclosed.
Most significantly, though, the Sazerac acquisition is a final mark of mainstream validation for BuzzBallz, a brand whose 15% ABV plastic spheres are frequent fixtures in liquor store or gas station checkout lanes in 50 states and 24 countries. The pre-made, tennis ball-sized cocktails, which come in flavors including Lime ‘Rita and Lotta Colada, are easy to mock. “You’ve probably seen a discarded BuzzBallz in a city storm drain,” Jerard Fagerberg wrote in an expansive profile of the company last year.
Despite their quirky appearance, Buzzballz are serious business. Over the past decade, BuzzBallz’s founder and alcohol industry newcomer Merrilee Kick cracked a code that established companies have struggled to unlock: an alchemy of flavor, packaging, ABV, and fun that went far beyond mere novelty. Perhaps her smartest move was to launch Chillers, the most ubiquitous BuzzBallz product line that uses a wine base—rather than distilled spirits—which allows it to be sold in retailers where hard liquor is prohibited.
Last year, BuzzBallz followed that with a malt-based line called Mixed Drinks, featuring flavors like Espresso Martini and Chili Mango, further expanding the retailers where BuzzBallz can legally be sold. Brewbound reports the malt-based line alone added $595,883 in Nielsen IQ-tracked chain retail stores in the previous 52 weeks. This additional lineup in particular matches moves from Sazarac, which has already experimented with their own malt-based versions of Fireball and Southern Comfort as a way to expand where brands can be sold and to find new customers.
Long before ready-to-drink cocktails were the growth-driving industry force they are now, BuzzBallz tapped into consumer demand for portable, single-serve, flavor-forward drinks at elevated ABVs. The Sazerac deal is merely confirmation of what the brand’s sales had proven: BuzzBallz captured lightning in an orb.
WHY IT MATTERS
Sazerac’s acquisition of BuzzBallz shows the degree to which even the country’s most established spirits companies are being challenged by non-traditional, flavor-driven competitors. And if you can’t beat them, buy them.
A 2023 economic briefing by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) made clear how critical pre-made cocktails are to the spirits industry, even as they represent a still-small volume share. Without ready-to-drink cocktails (RTDs), spirits would have posted negative volume trends last year, as wine and beer did.
RTDs are critical to spirits companies’ profits, too, as bottles of whisky or vodka aren’t selling at the rate they once were.
Cocktails and RTDs drove 46% of U.S. spirits’ brands revenues last year, according to the DISCUS report.
And from 2022-2023, RTD cocktails posted the highest growth rate of any spirits segment as their revenue grew +27%, adding nearly $600 million to the industry.
That growth rate was three times as large as tequila’s, the second fastest-growing segment.
Since 2018, vodka seltzer brand High Noon alone has accounted for 31% of the total spirits category’s volume growth, according to Shanken News.
This growth is possible because RTDs and cocktails excel at delivering what’s most important to drinkers when it comes to any kind of beverage right now: flavor. A consumer who might not enjoy a vodka martini could still love SunnyD Vodka seltzer, the same way it doesn't take a burbon aficionado to enjoy a BuzzBallz Cookie Nookie. In fact, the latter contains no bourbon at all, instead a wine to which a caramel cookie’s flavors are added.
Kick understood the primacy of flavor and convenience before many of her competitors did. And aided by her company’s vertical integration—BuzzBallz owns its 500,000-square foot facility and employs roughly 650 people—it turned that insight into profits.
In addition to all her prescient work with her business, Kick also has long been ahead of most other alcohol companies with an ability to connect with women drinkers—the most important demographic for alcohol. Kick previously shared with Good Beer Hunting that 65% of her customers are women over 35, but Gen Z has also flocked to the brand, with BuzzBallz becoming a hit among younger drinkers during the pandemic.
Laugh all you want at the “trashy little orbs that actually get you fucked up,” as music and culture writer Meghan Garvey affectionately described them, but they’re some of the most important alcohol products in he U.S. right now. According to Brewbound, BuzzBallz is the ninth-largest spirits product in the U.S. by dollar sales in chain retail outlets tracked by market research company Circana. That makes BuzzBallz nearly the size of Jim Beam in those channels—a market position you might not expect from a company that encourages drinkers to “taste its ballz.”
Words by Kate Bernot