The Washington Post - 18.09.2019

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST MG EE E3

company decided to develop its own line of hard seltzers after seeing t he success of the n ational brands — even with beer con- noisseurs. All it took was over- coming a little beer snobbery. “We looked around and saw that all of our friends are drinking it — we’re drinking it — so why are we scared of that?” he said. Their strategy? “Let’s do it, and let’s do it better.” The entry of craft brewers into the category suggests that the hard seltzer phenomenon is more than a blip, unlike its spiritual predecessor, the 1990s one-hit wonder that was Zima, Coors’ lemon-lime malt drink. Zima, which become a synonym for “effete” in David Letterman’s late-night jokes, never could shake its “girly man” association. The industry is taking notice: Natural Light just launched a new seltzer line (and hired Wal- lace for a marketing stunt that involved the comedian famous for his love of Claw to land a Natty-Light-branded helicopter on a yacht off Catalina Island). A higher-alcohol (and probably higher-testosterone) entry is ex- pected soon from Four Loko, the company best known for a mid- 200 0s caffeinated malt liquor that was ultimately banned by the Food and Drug Administra- tion. They’ll join other White Claw c ompetitors, including Bos- ton Beer’s Truly and Anheuser- Busch InBev’s Bon & Viv. Some forecasters suspect that overall, hard seltzer sales might fall off a bit in cooler weather. But there’s no indication that the fizzy party is close to being over. According to data from Nielsen, sales are projected to top the $1 billion mark by the end of 2019. And the Bank of America Merrill Lynch study finds that there is “a big untapped market potential” for the category. The end of summer brings tailgates, Halloween parties and holiday revelry — or in the language of White Claw’s marketing department, plenty more chances for a co-ed group hang. [email protected]

an exclusive vodka-and-soda drinker, he says, he has wel- comed finding cans of White Claw at parties. “ Usually you’d go to a barbecue and there’s just beer — so it fits the bill there.” Schuhmacher says the beer industry in particular has been slower to adapt because the big- gest companies have historically been family-owned. “Habits and mores change more slowly than when you have a publicly traded company with shareholders,” he said. Hard seltzer even has appeal among drinkers who would ordi- narily consider themselves too sophisticated to swill a canned malted liquor. Brad Glynn, the co-founder and vice president of marketing of Minnesota craft brewery Lift Bridge, said his

group posts lyrics from the jam band — altered, of course, with references t o their favorite drink. They mark one another’s birth- days by posting videos of themselves shotgunning Claws. Members of the group are genuinely passionate about the drink — but Schmillen, a 34- year-old stay-home-mom from Minneapolis, says they’re just as into the shared humor of it all. “They’re there for the jokes,” says Schmillen, who has an Etsy shop where she sells stickers and tank tops bearing the group’s name. “There’s this balancing act be- tween it being a meme and it being a real thing,” says Don Carter, an engineer in Los Ange- les. Although he approaches the drink with a bit of irony, he appreciates its convenience. As

America Merrill Lynch analyst Bryan Spillane, of hard seltzers’ low-sugar, low-calorie appeal to younger drinkers — men and women — who want to party beachside and care how they look doing it. I t’s also g luten-free. “It’s the whole low-carb, keto- friendly, CrossFit life.” And even drinkers who aren’t hardcore health nuts buy in. “They might be keto in their minds,” Spillane says. “It’s aspirational, in ways that have nothing to do with gender.” All kinds of communities have sprung up around White Claw. Ashley Schmillen is a member of the Facebook group Phish Fans Who Love White Claw, a page started by a friend of hers this summer as a joke that now has more than 4,500 members. The

guys got together in a basement and drank beer and women were off doing something else, drinking with their girlfriends,” Gaji- wala said. “Whatever we put out creatively and how we posi- tioned the brand really reflects that everyone h angs out t ogether all the time.” Hard seltzer is a category born catering to the millennial sensi- bility. “Beer marketers have been trying to crack the code of being gender-neutral after years of ig- noring half the population,” says Harry Schuhmacher, editor and publisher of Beer Business Daily. “Big brewers haven’t really been able to do it, but then White Claw came in, and it’s always been a gender-neutral thing.” Danelle Kosmal, vice president of Nielsen’s beverage alcohol practice, sees hard seltzer as one of the few beverages that has managed to pull off this feat. “Hard seltzer is one of the most gender-neutral products we have seen across the alcohol industry,” she said in an email. “In compari- son, traditional beer drinkers are two times more likely to be men than women.” And the relatively new drink is gaining on beer: A recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch study found that it accounts for 5 percent of the beer market. Over the summer, it seemed that White Claw morphed from a mere drink into a full-on life- style. What started out as “Hot Girl Summer” was re-dubbed “White Claw Summer,” a selfies- by-the-pool, hashtagged short- hand for good times. “It’s aspirational,” s ays Bank of

White Claw is marketing to a post-gender world, and millennials love it

escape the suburban carpool
grind with slugs from labels such
as Little Black Dress and Skinny-
girl.
Sometimes, after years of such
gendered marketing, a company
will realize that it has ignored or
alienated half of its potential
customer base, and then over-
corrects, occasionally to awk-
ward effect. In a new Coors Light
commercial, a woman is shown
performing post-workday rituals
that include grabbing a beer
from the fridge and whipping off
her bra through her sleeve. The
ad dubbed Coors “The Official
Beer of Being Done Wearing a
Bra” — and immediately touched
off a debate: Was it sexist? Relat-
able?
“The alcohol industry keeps
shooting itself in the foot,” says
Susan Dobscha, a professor of
marketing at Bentley University.
“It’s shortsighted to genderize an
entire product category.”
White Claw, meanwhile, has
sidestepped all that whiplash.
It’s huge among men and
women in equal measures.
There’s a clean 5 0-50 split in
younger consumers of hard selt-
zer, according to a study last
month by Bank of America Mer-
rill Lynch that analyzed the
drinking preferences of millen-
nials. And according to Nielsen
data, White Claw accounts for
more than half of seltzer sales.
Women love it. Even frat boys
and the bro-iest of men love it.
Comedian Trevor Wallace’s You-
Tube testosterone-steeped ode to
White Claw (“it’s like Perrier that
does squats”) has been viewed
millions of times — and spawned
the oft-echoed catchphrase “ain’t
no laws when you’re drinking
Claws!”
“You could see White Claw as
the dawning of this post-gender
world where millennials and
Gen Z are comfortable with the
idea of gender fluidity,” Dobscha
says.
White Claw’s ads and social
media posts feature the canned
product — slimmer and taller
than a traditional beer can —
front and center, with men and
women firmly in the backdrop.
And when they do appear,
they’re on equal footing.
There’s football — not on a bar
TV but rather a co-ed game being
played outdoors. Women might
be shown in tightfitting clothes,
but it’s athletic gear or just
regular beachwear, and the mod-
els look strong and fit instead of
seductive.
That’s intentional, says Sanjiv
Gajiwala, vice president of mar-
keting for White Claw. When the
brand launched in 2016, the idea
behind it was that the traditional
worlds depicted in beverage
marketing had pretty much gone
extinct. White Claw would be the
drink of the new gender norms,
of the kinds of “group hangs”
that define young people’s social
lives. “It wasn’t a world where

WHITE CLAW FROM E1

Each week, we field questions
about all things food related at
live.washingtonpost.com. Last
week’s guest was our Unearthed
columnist, Tamar Haspel. Here
are edited excerpts from that chat.
Recipes whose names are capital
ized can be found in our Recipe
Finder at washingtonpost.com/
recipes.

Q. I scored a box of “seconds”
peaches at the farmers market.
After using them for an Any Fruit
Cobbler, I hope to freeze what’s
left. What’s the best low-or-no-
sugar method?
A. The best low-or-no-sugar reci-
pe is to halve and pit them, but
don’t bother peeling, and roast
them at a nywhere from 200 to 450
degrees. ( The higher temperature
will give you more liquid, and
lower will keep them more whole
and concentrated.) If it’s t he high-
er temperature, do them cut side
down and you should be able to
slip off the peels really easily with-
in 15 minutes or so. If it’s t he lower
temperature, do them cut side up.
Let them go for a few hours, and
you won’t h ave to peel them. T hen
stuff them into your freezer con-
tainers of choice. Roasting at any
temperature concentrates the
natural sugars!
Joe Yonan.

Q. I needed to toast a half cup of walnut pieces for a salad last night, and the bits of skin and tiny nut crumbs burned before the bigger pieces were properly toast- ed. Should I have just left the burner on a lower flame for lon- ger? Or do I try to sift out the tiny bits? A. I prefer to toast nuts in the oven around 325 degrees. It allows for more control, even toasting and less chance of burning them. Olga Massov

Q. I recently heard from a friend whose personal trainer said that grocery chicken — o f any kind — i s the worst meat to eat because the chickens are pumped full of sodium to make them plump. A. It’s right there on the ingredi- ent list. Many rotisserie chickens (and some raw chickens) are what they call “enhanced” with an in- jection that includes salt and can include flavorings. Your rotisserie chicken will list salt as an ingredi- ent if it uses it. It’s hard to know how much, though, because the labeling requirements for rotisserie chickens are different from raw. That means that, yes, the meat has salt in it, and if you’re trying to avoid sodium, adjust your consumption accordingly. Tamar Haspel

FREE RANGE EXCERPTS

How to skip sugar when

preserving peaches

KRISTEN NORMAN/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE/GETTY IMAGES White Claw’s ads feature the hard seltzer front and center, with men and women firmly in the backdrop — and on equal footing.

First Bite will return next week.

Tom

Sietsema

FIRST BITE

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