Beer used to mean “beer.” Then it also included hard seltzer by legal definition. Then along came “smoothie seltzer,” which sounds like a dessert bought at a grocery store but is actually one of the hottest sub-categories in beverage alcohol right now. And that’s all thanks to Smooj.
Smooj is the brainchild of Tommy Kennedy, the owner of Ann Arbor, Michigan’s HOMES Brewery, which begat its spinoff seltzer company—officially called Troobado—at the end of 2020. Kennedy is also the founder and CEO for Smooj, which essentially created the market for fruit-laden, dessert-like seltzers now sold across the country from hype breweries like The Answer, Omnipollo, Untitled Art, and more. Any imitators are going to have competition from the originator, as Smooj began a slow, national rollout of its brands this past spring.
It’s an incredible story for a form of alcoholic beverage that didn’t even exist in the public consciousness 18 months ago. The 5% ABV seltzers are some of the highest-rated brands listed on Untappd, and as a “beer” business, Smooj is among the top-15 in the United States.
“There’s a license here to try something that’s not like traditional beer because it’s not beer,” Kennedy told Craft Beer & Brewing earlier this year. “The seltzer thing gave us this latitude to explore and do whatever was best from a marketing strategy and flavor side.”
The style is now popular enough that Smooj uses the tagline of “The O.G. Hard Seltzer Smoothie” to promote its Strawberry Banana and Piña Colada brands, which will continue to roll out to mainstream drinkers in 2022. But it’s the jump from obscurity to national phenomenon that helped Kennedy, HOMES, and Smooj create something unique in 2021, giving a new purpose to breweries, a new meaning to hard seltzer, and new excitement to drinkers.
Words,Bryan Roth