Absolut And Ocean Spray Form A Long-Awaited Canned Cocktail Alliance
Folks who have themselves bored with espresso tonics and espresso martinis and are tired of mixing their own cocktails at home might not have heard about this yet, but there's an easier way to enjoy a cocktail. So easy, in fact, that it doesn't require any special ingredients or techniques to make — just the simple pop of a tab. One such product is set to launch in early 2024. Absolut Vodka just announced a new Ready-to-Drink line of fizzy canned cocktails in partnership with Ocean Spray in a press release. Presumably, it's meant to appeal to people who can't be bothered with cocktail shakers and measuring jiggers after a long day.
The new canned cocktails will feature Absolut vodka with Ocean Spray cranberry juice, along with sparkling water and other flavors. There will be four different flavor varieties to choose from, available in eight-packs, four-packs, and single cans. It certainly makes sense for Absolut, which found in a study that 9.2% of all servings of Absolute vodka are mixed with cranberry juice, compared with just 6.6% of vodka as a whole. But it's not the first company to pair vodka and cranberry juice. And if someone told you that Ocean Spray did it decades ago, you might wonder what took so long for this collab to happen.
This collab is a long time coming
A vodka cran, also known as a Cape Codder, is one of the simplest cocktails out there, safe to order at even the grimiest dive bars. The name of the cocktail makes sense because lots of cranberries are grown on Cape Cod, which is near Plymouth, Massachusetts, where cranberry company Ocean Spray is headquartered. Coincidence? Not at all. It turns out, Ocean Spray invented the Cape Codder in the 1940s to sell more cranberry juice. Allegedly, it was first called the Red Devil, before Ocean Spray featured the drink in a New Yorker ad in 1965, calling it the Cape Codder. The rest was history.
Since then, there have been endless variations on the cocktail. It sometimes goes by other names, like the Bog-Fog or the Rangoon Ruby, and it's spawned other drinks like the Sea Breeze (add grapefruit juice), the Bay Breeze (add pineapple), and a drink that sounds a lot like Absolut and Ocean Spray's new canned creation: the Rose Kennedy, which pairs vodka, soda water, and cranberry juice. Soon, fans will be able to enjoy this classic cocktail without getting cranberry juice all over the counter in the process of mixing it up, thanks to the Absolut Vodka and Ocean Spray Vodka-Cranberry Range.