The high-alcohol drink taking over Gen Z

BuzzBallz are hard drinks sold in bottles that resemble phosphorescent billiard balls. They contain about 15% alcohol by volume, more than double that of the average beer. And Lucy Rocca first heard about them from her 13-year-old daughter. It was December, and Rocca was talking to her daughter and a friend about a shopping list for a New Year’s Eve party. When the girls brought up BuzzBallz, “I was like, ‘Whoa, no way,’” Rocca, 50, recalled. She asked where her daughter had gotten the idea. “All my friends are drinking them,” she responded. The exchange alarmed Rocca, who lives in Sheffield, England, and runs a sobriety group for women. On her next trip to the supermarket, she tracked down a display of the beverages, which cost about $4 apiece and come in flavors like Strawberry ’Rita and Peachballz — a vodka cocktail the color of a traffic cone. Also read | Why Gen Z believes matcha, makeup, concerts are essential self-care Rocca had flashbacks to drinking similar sweet, flavored beverages like Castaway, a wine cooler, when she began binge drinking as an adolescent. (She stopped drinking in 2011.) Her daughter’s generation seems to have found its equivalent. BuzzBallz have been around since 2009, but today they are practically ubiquitous. You can find them sprinkled like confetti throughout college parties and stacked by the checkout at convenience stores. The fluorescent orbs are easy to spot on a Florida beach during spring break; in a crowded social media feed, they glow like beacons. The drinks are portable, flavored and cheap, a combination that has earned them a reputation as a go-to beverage for Generation Z. BuzzBallz were the No. 2 prepared cocktail brand in terms of dollar growth during a four-week period ending in January, according to Nielsen IQ. The brand was acquired by spirits company Sazerac in ߨ that same year, Forbes estimated its annual revenue to be about $500 million.Story continues below this ad Andrew Pentland, a manager and buyer at G...