Unknowingly, with strange flavors and cool packaging, many silly and indistinguishable beverage brands suddenly appeared on the market. Most of these emerging beverage brands are characterized by mild taste and low alcohol content. From the perspective of industry classification, they are actually “Ready to Drinks”, a kind of pre-mixed beverages for sale. Cocktails for sale.
“Pre-mixed wine” was born in Europe and the United States in the 1990s, and under the transformation of Japan, it has become a popular beverage with a wide range of scenes and suitable for men and women. At a time when young people are getting tired of traditional wine bureaus and the recognition of traditional liquor is gradually decreasing, what opportunities will the imported “pre-mixed wine” have? What kind of ups and downs has it spent in China for 20 years?
The 045 BAI course book is ready, telling the past and present of pre-mixing, get in the car and go!
Dancing at the party, playing dead in the wine bureau.
For every contemporary young man who claims to be “no alcohol”, how to selectively drink in social situations has become a subject worth studying. For wine companies, the consumption preferences of contemporary young people, like their erratic performance in the wine bureau, have become a metaphysics.
While having another glass of Mojito, at the same time I have to apologize fancyly for rejecting the leader’s toast. In the face of physical and mental health and social networking, contemporary young people are simply too southern. | bizevdeyokuz.com
Although there have been many data showing that traditional liquor represented by Moutai is losing a generation of young people, the growing market for pre-mixed and low-alcohol liquors and other emerging beverage categories hints at another paradoxical reality: contemporary young people are not Love to drink, but no longer drink like before.
The wine list of contemporary young people has long been filled with various types of alcoholic beverages other than traditional liquor. Pre-mixed wines born in Europe and traditional low-alcohol wines that have returned strongly have now become a new source of happiness for young people.
The “2019 White Paper on China’s Alcohol Consumption Behavior” released by the Hurun Research Institute shows that women and post-90s alcohol consumption groups are rising in China. Some statistics have also shown that low-alcohol drinks such as fruit wine and foreign wine are rapidly gaining market share by virtue of high growth rates.
In 2002, Rui Ao began to sell. It is through Rui Ao that many people enter the world of cocktails | Sina Weibo
There is no doubt that alcoholic drinks have strong social attributes. Behind different alcoholic beverages, there are different consumption scenarios hidden. To understand the consumption scenarios behind it, we must start with the origins of different alcohol categories.
01: Born in a bar, social interaction depends on it, the past of European and American pre-mixing
Different from the hot liquor that “drink a pound of wine, I will walk on the wall”, cocktails from the West are favored by young people today with their soft taste and rich changes.
Although pre-mixed cocktails sold in cans or bottles are only 30 years old, ready-to-drink cocktails have a long history.
The predecessor of the cocktail is Punch, a rough drink that mixes spirits, sugar, spices and various fruit juices in a big bowl. South Asia, which is rich in fruits and spices, is the birthplace of Punch. At the beginning of the 17th century, British sailors who served in the East India Company brought this magical oriental drink back to the motherland, and it became the fat house happy water popular in Britain.
Punch is well tuned, gentlemen are indispensable, look at these sloppy English drunks, shame! | http://www.diffordsguide.com
Punch followed the British to North America and became the classic way of drinking rum with sugar and juice. Later, the German method of drinking spirits with syrup and liqueur, and the Italian method of drinking with bitter wine as a side drink, and the continuous integration of ancient punches, finally created a variety of cocktail recipes that are now well-known.
In 1806, American Harry Croswell (1778-1858) began to use the term cocktail to describe a new beverage based on spirits, mixed with sugar and bittering agents. At the time, cocktails were a very popular drink at election events, and the U.S. Democratic Party at the time was particularly keen on it.
Sure enough, whether you want to do big things, no matter ancient or modern, you have to go to the wine bureau. |vinepair.com Sure enough, no matter ancient or modern, you have to go to the wine bureau if you want to do big things. |vinepair.com
In 1876, Jerry Thomas (1830-1885), known as the “Father of Cocktails,” published his pioneering work “Bar-Tender’s Guide”, Thomas’s extremely ornamental mixology Techniques and creative bartending recipes have turned cocktail bartenders into a cool profession in one fell swoop.
Thomas’ unique work, the “blue flame” that tastes delicious and does not burn his mouth, it also has a high popularity in contemporary times | http://www.mixolopedia.com
The cocktail we know today was officially born.
Since its inception, cocktails have been closely connected with social scenes such as gatherings and events, and serving a glass of green wine under a red light has also become a long tradition of Western social activities since the 20th century.
In 1993, Two Dogs Alcoholic Lemonade (Two Dogs Alcoholic Lemonade) came out in Australia. This new type of drink, which was popular in Europe and America, became a real branded cocktail.
The founder of Two Dogs and his grand product | dailytelegraph.com.au
Ready-to-Drinks (Ready-to-Drinks) also opened up the mass production of the brand and entered a new era. Today, pre-mixed wines can be divided into four categories according to the type of base wine: spirit base, malt base, red wine base and other bases.
The most popular pre-mixed cocktails are spirit-based pre-mixes based on spirits such as rum, whiskey, and vodka, and malt-based pre-mixes based on ales such as beer. The ancient spirit-based pre-mixing has dominated the world in recent years, accounting for almost 64% of the industry’s sales.
In 2018, the annual sales volume of pre-mixed wine in the United States reached 1.01 million kiloliters, accounting for 23% of the global share, but still ranked second in the world. It’s surprising to say that the country that consumes the most pre-mixed drinks in the world is actually Japan, which is as far away as East Asia.
In 2018, the annual sales volume of pre-mixed cocktails in Japan reached 1.3 million kiloliters, ranking first in the world. Unlike the US version of pre-mixed with malt base as the mainstream, the Japanese version of pre-mixed with spirits as the base presents a unique situation.
In the United States, malt-based premixes are the mainstream, which makes American premixes generally high in calories, such as this cola-flavored whiskey | distillerytrail.com
Unexpectedly, the pre-made cocktails born in Europe and the United States have found the people who like it the most in the far east. Under the leadership of Japan, East Asia has become an important area in the pre-mixed wine market.
All of this will start from 30 years ago.
02: No one asked before, now it is the beginning of the rise of Oriental pre-mix
Brewery-led Japanese premix
In 1994, the “lost thirty years” of the Japanese economy only reached its fifth year.
In order to increase taxation, Japan has clarified the industry standard for malt content in beer. Beer with a malt ratio higher than 67% is defined as beer, and a tax of 222 yen per liter is levied, and those with less than 67% are defined as sparkling wine. , 152.7 yuan tax is levied per liter.
Who could have imagined that the beer tax reform gave birth to a new alcohol category | nippon.com Who could have imagined that the beer tax reform gave birth to a new alcohol category | nippon.com
In order to make more money and pay less taxes, the fiercely competitive Japanese breweries used their brains to reduce the concentration of malt in beer and introduced new beverages. The familiar vocabulary of the drunkards such as “一番湯り”, “生”, and “発泡酒” began to evolve from sensory-stimulating advertising language to industry slang that implies the category of alcohol.
After the economic bubble burst, Neon Gold would not have thought that beer with a strong malt smell will become more and more difficult to drink in the future|TechNews.com
The two Japanese liquor tax reforms in 1996 and 2003 reduced the malt concentration of new Japanese beers all the way, and finally gave birth to the wonder of the beer world-the “third beer” with a malt ratio of 0%.
Since then, Japanese pre-mixed cocktails have made their debut in the name of “beer”. It is intriguing that the Japanese version of pre-mixed wine for tax avoidance considerations has not launched malt-based pre-mixed wine like the pre-mixed counterparts in the United States in order to reduce the malt concentration while improving the taste, but embarked on a spirit base. New way.
In Japan’s beer beverage industry, these pre-modified cocktails with the title of “Third Type Beer” have accounted for 38% of the market |nippon.com
Perhaps inspired by the Suntory High-Ball (a drink of whiskey and strong soda), the Japanese distillery subsequently developed a uniquely Japanese premix: Chu-Hi (酎ーハイ), which is also made from Japanese shochu. The base is an alternative High-Ball mixed with other beverages.
With the development of the times, today’s Chu-Hi in Japan is no longer confined to shochu. The pre-mixed liquor made from various non-whiskey spirits such as vodka, brandy, rum and other non-whiskeys mixed with fruit juices are all labeled as Chu-Hi. Sold under the name.
The ice of Kirin and Suntory’s -196℃ are the enduring hot items in the Japanese pre-mixed market |japaholic.com
The low-fruity Japanese Chu-Hi also accidentally opened up the drinking market for Japanese women. Men drank shochu and sake to buy drunk in izakayas, and women drank Chu-Hi at home to relax, which has gradually become a common practice in Japanese society since the new century. The phenomenon.
In 2018, Coca-Cola launched the first alcoholic beverage in Japan. In 2019, it launched the shochu-based lemon-flavored alcohol drink brand “Lemon Tang”. In the ad, Hiroshi Abe’s hotel owner fascinated female customers with a glass of lemon shochu | Lemon Hall official website
The pre-mixed Japanese version of low alcohol, sweet taste, and one person drink later indirectly inspired Chinese counterparts who were caught in the market. The copywriting style of the Japanese version of pre-mixed ads has also profoundly affected Chinese counterparts.
Let’s find the difference between Rui Ao RIO and Suntory and Joy | Rui Ao RIO and the official website of He Leyi, and find the difference between Rui Ao RIO and Suntory and the official website
Chinese pre-mixed wine
The first to test the Chinese pre-mixed wine market was the Cuban rum manufacturer Bacardi. Bacardi’s Breezer pre-mixed cocktail came out in 1993 and entered in 1997. China. At that time, Bing Rui attempted to reproduce the successful experience in London and other European and American cities, focusing on bars, KTV and other channels that seemed ungrounded at the time.
However, the western-style Bingrui has never been able to get a place in the nightclub. The price is low, but Sprite and Coke are not sold. The price is high and cannot be squeezed into the lineup of luxury liquor. The medium price will cause beer brands to be besieged… , Bingrui’s annual sales in more than a dozen well-known night markets in Shanghai have always hovered at the level of several million yuan.
Bingrui is almost an ice-breaking item in the Chinese pre-mixed wine market. How do you feel that the packaging is so familiar? Bingrui is almost an ice-breaking item in the Chinese pre-mixed wine market. How do you feel that the packaging is so familiar?
In 2008, riding the east wind on the rise of e-commerce platforms, Bing Rui began to explore the transition from night to matinee. Since 2012, with its successful placement in “Love Apartment”, Bingrui ushered in the peak of the Chinese market. However, the good times didn’t last long. In less than two years, Bingrui, who was born in a wealthy family, was taken the top spot by another similar-looking Chinese domestic brand.
The bottles and jars on the tables of these men and women are the colorful Bing Rui | A certain episode of the third season of the love apartment These bottles and jars on the tables of the men and women are the colorful Bing Rui | The third season of the love apartment One episode
This is the Rui Ao RIO, which started on sale in 2002 and is still influential.
Almost at the same time that Bingrui’s TV series was successfully implanted, Rui Ao RIO invested heavily in hiring Zhou Xun as a spokesperson, and began to title or place ads in multiple hit reality shows and TV series. In a flash, Rui Ao RIO RIO defeated Bing Rui and became a momentary internet celebrity. RIO RIO surpassed Bingrui to become the industry’s first in 2014 and pushed China’s pre-mixed wine market to its peak in 2015.
In the context of Rui’s RIO’s popularity, traditional liquor brands have also begun to develop their own low-alcohol products.
In 2014, Wuliangye launched Dracula Chinese pre-mixed wine with an alcohol content of 3% to 7%. In October of the same year, Shuijingfang established a pre-mixed cocktail subsidiary. In December of that year, Huiyuan, the leader in the juice industry, also launched its own Fruity cocktail products are “really dazzling”.
Subsequently, Moutai launched the blueberry-flavored low-alcohol pre-mixed wine “Youmi UMEET”, and Wuliangye launched the green plum flavored “Xianlin Qingmei”. With the word “old”, Luzhou Laojiao also launched its own in 2016. “Peach Blossom Drunk” | jianiang.cn
However, the outbreak of pre-mixed wine brands did not usher in the market growth that matched it. After 2015, the bubble burst rapidly. Even the leader Rui Ao RIO began to face the dilemma of product backlog and slow sales. The once-hot market suddenly fell silent.
The turning point occurred in 2017.
This year, the revenue of Jiang Xiaobai, an emerging liquor brand, exceeded RMB 1 billion.
The major wine companies lost in the cool packaging and rich flavors suddenly realized that they seemed to have made a mistake about the correct way to open the new generation of beverages.
03: It’s not that you don’t like to drink, don’t like to drink like that, young people’s drinking metaphysics
The taste of traditional liquor is not good, and its height causes physical discomfort. This is a common reason why young people refuse to drink traditional spirits. For young people, high-grade liquor is difficult to touch, and ordinary liquor is not accepted by young people because of its low feeling.
This allowed the major wineries to learn from the experience of RIO RIO, and began to make a fuss about packaging and taste. However, the rise of a new generation of beverage brands such as Jiang Xiaobai has made the market realize that matching specific scenarios to meet the social needs of young people and provide them with an emotionally resonant consumer experience may be the only way to sell good wine. Famen.
The pleasant low-end and exotic taste may be able to attract young people’s early adopters, but after all, it can only keep consumers’ mouths, not consumers’ hearts.
In the final analysis, as a fast-moving consumer product, the scene and purpose of consumption must be clear. What needs to be discarded is not so much the spicy taste experience of traditional liquor, but it is actually more useless social and workplace kidnapping that is strongly related to it. Renewing the social scene to truly meet the emotional needs of young people may be a point that needs to be focused on for current emerging beverage brands.
Bantendrink 