Booze in a Box

Squeezable pouches have made their way from baby foods to booze.

As reported by the trade magazine Advertising Age, plastic pouches have been a popular choice for infant brands such as Gerber for quite a while, but now they’re popping up all over the liquor aisle for products such as wine, premixed cocktails and flavored malt beverages.

The packaging trend really gained traction this summer, thanks to new pouch versions rolled out by big brands like Smirnoff and Arbor Mist.

Sales of alcoholic beverages in pouches grew by 153% over the same period last year, according to Nielsen.  Major retailers such are now stocking pouch brands in coolers in some store locations.

“All the companies are jumping on board,” said Megan Metcalf, editor of Wine & Spirits Daily.

Among the most prominent brands to enter the pouch category are Parrot Bay and Smirnoff, using the packaging to house fruity malt-beverage drinks meant to be frozen and squeezed into a glass. The single-serve 10-ounce pouches are marketed as a convenient, no-mess way to serve swanky mixology-style cocktails at home.

Pouches can simplify drink prep. "If you think about making mixed drinks, in a lot of markets you need to go to the liquor store for one ingredient, you need to go to the grocery store for another, you need to pull out the blender," said Patrick Hughes, Diageo's brand director overseeing frozen-pouch marketing, quoted in the Ad Age story.

This whole pouch trend makes me wonder if the familiar old road trip song needs updating. “Ninety-nine pouches of booze on the wall, ninety-nine pouches of booze, take one down, pass it around…”