'MALTERNATIVES' Coolers are just flavored beer

Most consumers don't know that, according to a survey.
By DON OLDENBURG
WASHINGTON POST
Smirnoff Ice. Bacardi Silver. Jack Daniel's Original Hard Cola. Got any idea what kind of alcohol these beverages contain?
Most consumers don't, according to a national poll conducted last month by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Surveying adults on the new breed of malt beverages called "malternatives," CSPI found that products labeled with a liquor brand name are mistaken to be liquor beverages by 38 percent to 49 percent of those polled (varying with the product). Only 9 percent to 14 percent of adults polled knew that Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Silver, for instance, basically are flavored beer, while 4 percent to 10 percent thought they were wine beverages, nearly half thought they were liquor, and 29 percent to 38 percent didn't know.
"We found 12 to 18 year olds also identified these liquor-branded 'alcopops' with liquor," says George Hacker, director of the CSPI's Alcohol Policies Project, referring to a survey of teen-agers conducted in July that found 36 percent to 42 percent polled associated the beverages with liquor.
"Now we found that adults are even more confused. Their ads and some of the promos may say 'premium malt beverage,' but despite that, people think it's liquor. When people see liquor brand, they think liquor."
The best of both worlds
So what if consumers are confused?
The Washington-based consumer health group -- considered by some to be the "food police" for its warnings about carbonated soft drinks (which it dubs "liquid candy"), high-fat, high-calorie Chinese restaurant dining and other health issues -- says that because these are malt beverages, liquor companies can sell them in grocery and convenience stores alongside beer and wine, at a lower tax rate than liquor. And, like beer, they can be advertised on network television, where liquor commercials have been off-limits voluntarily for decades.
"They want to ride the coattails of liquor and its marketplace panache," says Hacker. "On the other hand, they want to enjoy the benefits of being a malt beverage and get their liquor brand names in places where they haven't been before."
Targeting the young
Hacker also argues that liquor manufacturers are deliberately designing and marketing alcoholic beverages that resemble soft drinks and disguise the taste of alcohol to capture the attention of young and underage drinkers.
"It's bad enough that they are sort of this bridge between soft drinks and beer," he says of the sweet malt-based drinks. "But now they want to bring young consumers to the liquor market. They want consumers to think of these products as an introduction to liquor."
Ads for the beverages, says Hacker, are clearly youth-oriented, and a 2001 CSPI poll showed teens are three times more familiar with alcopop products than adults and twice as likely to have tried them. "The ads press all of the adolescent hot buttons -- sex, music, rebellion, independence," he says.
Industry response
But the industry says it is marketing malternatives primarily to 21 to 25 year olds, which is perfectly legal.
"Sweet drinks are as old as Martha Washington's rum punch. Adult consumers have a taste for sweet drinks. But the bottom line is that the products are legal, and there's a First Amendment right to advertise them," says Frank Coleman, spokesman for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a Washington-based trade group.
Coleman reminds that CSPI's argument that liquor-branded malt beverages are a confusing and underhanded scheme to seduce teens to drinking liquor was dismissed earlier this year by the Federal Trade Commission and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "After a year-long investigation, costing tax payers countless dollars, the FTC said, no, these products are not being marketed to children or youths," he says.
While the ATF, which is continuing to study malt beverage labeling and production issues, nixed manufacturers using terms such as vodka-flavored and tastes like rum, which appeared on some malt beverages, it ruled that using a liquor brand name on malt products is not itself misleading.
"It seems to be that CSPI is all about junk science in its own self-interest," says Coleman.
But Hacker thinks the government has "cavalierly dismissed" the potential for malt beverages' misleading consumers. "Many of them look like soft drinks, and they taste like Sprite or lemonade," he says. "These are alcoholic beverages for the 'Pepsi Generation.' These are beer or liquor on training wheels."