Until recently, cocktails were rare at baseball stadiums. Beer was very easy to grab on the go, and getting rowdy fans to drink was in no one’s best interest. Alcohol was scarce, sometimes only in air-conditioned rooms where worldly people could be drunk away from the crowds. And yet, on Memorial Day weekend, I found myself huddled in the stands at Wrigley Field drinking a mai tai, next to a stranger drinking a margarita.
My partner and I were getting Cutwaters, a line of canned cocktails from Anheuser-Busch. The arena’s beer stand offered Long Island iced tea, canned palomas, even canned espresso martinis. Alcohol companies have been trying to make the concept of portable cocktails stick for over a century, and they’ve finally succeeded. In 2025, Americans will consume nearly 11 billion servings of ready-to-drink beverages, according to IWSR, a data company that tracks trends in the alcohol industry. Depending on your state, you can now buy Cutwaters at CVS, Walmart, and Trader Joe’s. A four-pack, which contains six to eight shots worth of alcohol, will run you $12 or more.
The canned food industry was paved with so-called alternatives: strong, fruity, portable drinks that are technically made from a beer ingredient but taste like nothing else. While early alternative beers like Coors Zima never really took off, brands like White Claw did found mass appeal in the late 2010s and early 2020s, thanks in part to lower alcohol consumption; at 5 percent, they were seen as the best drink for Americans who were face the truth that drinking is not good for your health. But the new range of ready-made cocktails represents a remarkable inversion. Cutwater, BuzzBallz, and BeatBox—the three most popular brands—sell fruity flavors that come in at 7 to 15 percent alcohol. (Cutwater also sells classic cocktail flavors, including a Bloody Mary and a “gin Collins.”) Even White Claw is entering the high-proof canned drink market: In 2021, the brand launched Surge, an 8 percent version of its signature seltzer.
US beer sales still dwarf those of canned cocktails, as evidenced by the plastic glasses littering the stands at Wrigley. But ready-to-drink cocktails have emerged as a rare bright spot for the liquor industry, whose business has languished in recent years. Year-over-year sales of mixed drinks are expected to increase by 40 percent in 2025, according to data from market research firm Circana, while sales of beer declined slightly.
Since the repeal of Prohibition, states have taken precautions to ensure that alcohol is more difficult to obtain than other versions due to its high alcohol content. Most states allow alcoholic beverages—including mixed drinks—to be sold only in specialty liquor stores. States have also historically taxed alcohol at a higher rate than beer and wine to discourage consumption.
But the spirits industry has been pushing for change so it can sell more cans. First, the alternative laws covered liquor laws because they contained the same ingredients as beer. Now the American Spirits Beverage Council, which lobbies for liquor companies, argues that cans should be sold wherever beer is because they can contain nearly the same amount of alcohol as beer (in some cases, much stronger beer). In a statement, the council told me that more than half of the ready-to-drink drinks sold are less than 5 percent alcohol. But high-end proof options still sell well. Anheuser-Busch recently announced that Cutwater, which does not make a single drink under 7 percent alcohol, is the most popular brand of canned drinks.
In the past five years, four states have changed their laws to allow the sale of canned cocktails wherever beer or wine is sold. (Although states limit the amount of alcohol that can be in a grocery store cocktail, that limit usually allows higher ABV products to be sold.) Taxes on canned cocktails have also been reduced in many states. Meanwhile, BuzzBallz creates liquor and wine versions of its neon-colored, orb-shaped drinks so they can be sold in as many settings as possible. Jess Scheerhorn, president of BuzzBallz, told me in an email that this is a “widely accepted practice” in the alcohol industry. He also emphasized that the company supports moderation for drinkers.
America’s newfound thirst for alcoholic beverages is somewhat puzzling: After all, the percentage of Americans who say they don’t drink is very high. Still, most Americans drink, and as the cost of all kinds of consumer goods rises, more people are reaching for cheaper versions of their favorite beverages. Canned cocktails fit the bill. Plus, the bright-blue, berry-cherry-lime-flavored BuzzBall adds a bit of booze that, say, the Fireball handle lacks. It also looks better on Instagram.
Some drinkers may not realize how much alcohol they are consuming. People regularly post online about how they’ve had two or three drinks and were surprised to find themselves hammered, as if they had no idea they’d had too much to drink. (Under the official definition, two Piña Colada Cutwaters in two hours land directly in the zone of binge drinking.) Some videos are filmed from hospital beds. In one TikTok with nearly 400,000 likes, a woman suggests that Cutwater is harming its customers because its products are secretly laced with fentanyl. (They’re not.) An Anheuser-Busch spokesperson told me in an email that the company “has a long-standing commitment to responsible drinking, and we sell our products responsibly.” (White Claw’s parent company did not respond to a request for comment.)
To be fair, the amount of alcohol in these drinks is no secret. Most alcoholic beverages list their strength on the package, and Cutwater cans also advertise the number of shots of alcohol in each can. But Cutwaters has become so notorious for causing accidental power outages that drinking an entire four-pack has become its own social media challenge. The White Nails generation, used to popping cans of seltzers at backyard barbecues and feeling nothing more than a mild buzz, still doesn’t understand how to responsibly partake in these new products. People may see having one can versus multiple alcoholic seltzers as controlling their drinking, Marten Lodewijks, president of the IWSR, told me. (They may also think they’re making better choices by consuming fewer calories.) “Consumers often use packaging as a shortcut to what’s considered one serving size or socially acceptable,” Logan Pant, a marketing professor who has studied consumer attitudes toward alcohol, told me in an email.
The problem, in short, can be. I knew how much alcohol was in my mai tai, but when the Cubs game slowed down around the fifth inning, I decided to have another one. Although I knew this was not the best choice for a Saturday afternoon, I was relieved by the fact that I only had dirt on my feet twice.
