Companies and Brands

Millennials Love This Hard Seltzer Above All

Aaron Webber

Published: July 21, 2024 11:30 am

Between the years of 2016 and 2020 hard seltzer sales grew at triple-digit rates. Most of this growth was due to the launch of White Claw, which continues to dominate the market, but what other brands rode this wave of success?

Hard seltzers are particularly popular among the millennial generation. In order to find the most popular brands, we consulted YouGov, which conducted public polling to measure the popularity and fame of brands, people, and media, including hard seltzers.

While a ranking of any kind will have issues of bias and subjectivity, these are the most popular hard seltzer brands according to millennials.

Why Are We Talking About This?

Hard seltzers are a relatively new introduction to the world of alcohol, and those who invested in hard seltzers at the beginning have since made huge amounts of money. Will the industry continue to grow or are we past its heyday? If you want to find a new drink for the summer, this can be a fun list, or if you are looking to invest in a beverage company, this might be a great starting point.

#15 10 Barrel Brewing Co. Clean Line Mango

10 Barrel Brewing Co. is a beer company based in Bend Oregon with two pub locations in Bend, one in Portland, and one in Boise. Not only can you order drinks from their website or in a grocery store, but you can also visit their locations and take a tour of the facility or enjoy a drink inside or outside. The 10 Barrel Brewing Co. is best-known for its beer line and ready-made, canned cocktails.

#14 Crook & Marker Spiked and Sparkling

Crook & Marker creates organic hard seltzers with zero sugar and each drink has 5% ABV. It styles its drinks as organic alcohol. Crook & Marker was founded by the same person who founded Bai Antioxidant Beverages: Ben Weiss. According to Crook & Marker’s website, their line of drinks was created because Weiss saw nothing but the same old, boring, bland drinks on store shelves, all overloaded with sugar and mysterious ingredients, and his new drink offered full taste, organic ingredients, and no sugar.

#13 Vizzy Hard Seltzer Raspberry Tangerine

Vizzy Hard Seltzer comes in several different flavors, and the raspberry tangerine flavor is available as part of a pack called the refreshingly berry pack which also includes black cherry lime, blackberry lemon, and watermelon strawberry. If you’re looking for a hard seltzer with more than one flavor, this might be the brand for you. Similar to other hard seltzer brands, Vizzy has 5% alcohol by volume, one gram of sugar, 100 calories, and two carbs per can.

#12 High Noon Sun Sips

High Noon Sun Sips is actually the brand of the whole line of vodka seltzers offered by High Noon and includes eleven flavors: pineapple, grapefruit, black cherry, peach, lime, watermelon, mango, lemon, passionfruit, kiwi, and guava.

While each drink is a mix of fruit flavors and juices, the juice comes from real fruit, and the vodka is made from corn grown in the American Midwest. Customers can buy individual cans or whole packs of the 100-calorie seltzers.

#11 Topo Chico

Topo Chico is a brand of mineral water produced by Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and in 2021 it launched its hard seltzer line with common flavors. However, Coca-Cola faced lawsuits in New York and in Florida that their packaging was misleading and because the Topo Chico Margarita Hard Seltzer did not actually contain any tequila.

#10 Sauza Agua Fuerte

Sauza Agua Fuerte is made by the Sauza Tequila company and means “strong water”. It is a tequila-based seltzer launched in 2018 and includes a real tequila base from the Sauza Tequila company. It is available in three flavors: lime, grapefruit, and mango. Like other ready-made, canned cocktails on this list, it has 5% ABV.

#9 Truly Passion Fruit

The only Truly seltzer with a passion fruit flavor is the Truly Passion Fruit Vodka Soda. This drink has 5% alcohol by volume, 100 calories, two grams of sugar, and only four carbs. Like many recent drink brands, you can buy this seltzer online by itself or as part of a variety pack.

#8 Truly Hard Seltzer

Truly Hard Seltzers are made by the Boston Beer Company, the same company that produces Samuel Adams. Truly includes several different flavors between light and bold flavors that all have 5% ABV, it also offers vodka soda, tequila soda, and some limited-release flavors and variants. The alcohol for Truly is made from natural cane sugar.

#7 White Claw Iced Tea Mango

White Claw launched in 2016 and took the hard seltzer world by storm. By 2019, it was the top-selling hard seltzer in the United States and accounted for more than 60% of the hard seltzer market. It was so popular, in fact, that there was a nationwide shortage of White Claw due to the high demand. In 2020, it continued to grow and reached a 246.7% increase in sales over the previous year.

Today there are 29 flavors offered by White Claw, including non-alcoholic versions launched in 2023.

#6 CANTEEN Watermelon Vodka Soda

CANTEEN’s vodka soda seltzers have zero sugar, no carbs, and 99 calories. It comes in seven flavors including watermelon, black cherry, pineapple, lime, ruby red, strawberry, and cucumber mint. Each flavor has 5% ABV and has a light flavor that doesn’t beat you over the head. CANTEEN also offers tequila seltzers and tequila sodas.

#5 Sparkling Ice Spiked Ruby Fizz

Sparkling Ice Spiked Ruby Fizz is a grapefruit-flavored seltzer with 80 calories and 4% ABV. Reviewers have loved the sweet and tart flavor of this lightly carbonated seltzer. Sparkling Ice is produced by Talking Rain which began the line of seltzers way back in 1992. Since then, the company has grown with additional healthy water products and caffeinated drinks.

#4 Mike’s Hard Lemonade Seltzer Pineapple

Mike’s Hard Lemonade began in 1999 and was one of the first brands in the malt beverage industry. According to the company, every flavor of Mike’s Hard Lemonade includes real lemons, natural sugars, other flavors, and their “bespoke” yeast for the fermentation process. Mike’s Hard Lemonade has about 5% alcohol, which is a normal amount for seltzers and similar drinks.

#3 Smirnoff Spiked Sparkling Seltzer

The Smirnoff Seltzer lineup includes blue raspberry, pink, peach, pineapple, spicy tamarind, pineapple jalapeno, spicy margarita, mango chili, and Red, White & Berry. All the seltzers have zero sugar and only have 90 calories. Of course, being made by Smirnoff, all the drinks are vodka-based.

#2 High Noon Grapefruit

There are actually two grapefruit-flavored seltzers offered by High Noon: the Vodka Seltzer Grapefruit and the Tequila Seltzer Grapefruit. If you’re looking for a new kind of seltzer to include in your summer seltzer lineup, then the tequila version might be a perfect option for you. It even comes in High Noon’s FIESTA PACK or the Seltzer Variety 8 Pack.

#1 White Claw Hard Seltzer

White Claw Hard Seltzer was the first line of alcoholic seltzer water introduced by the White Claw brand. It is made from a “beer base” and fruit flavor but is not classified as a beer and the exact recipe for White Claw drinks is a company secret.

White Claw is made by the same person who created Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Anthony von Mandl, who seems to have cracked the code for drinks America wants to buy. The brand has continued to grow with new flavors and variants ever since. This includes a vodka-based version in Canada and iced tea seltzers.