Coca-Cola Is Coming Out with Topo Chico Hard Seltzer

In 2017, Coca-Cola purchased the Mexican sparkling water brand Topo Chico, bringing the cult-favorite beverage to a much wider audience (and thrilling homesick Texans everywhere.) And now, they’re doing something new with the drink. As hard seltzer soars to the top of trend charts, more than doubling its share of the market in the year preceding the pandemic and growing enormously during it (per Nielsen), Coca-Cola saw the opportunity to tweak their little purchase into a big time competitor for industry leader White Claw.

The new Topo Chico-branded hard seltzer will release by the end of this year, the company announced today, reports CNBC. The drink would be the first alcoholic beverage made by Coke in more than three decades other than a small experiment in Japan a few years ago. But Texans and the rest of the country will have to sit tight for a minute, as the drink will start with sales in select Latin American cities before it works its way north to the U.S. next year.

Hard seltzer has been a huge boon to the drinks market, bringing in a lot of new audiences and big sales among the coveted millennial audience, and White Claw, which is made by Mike’s Hard Lemonade, has long dominated the audience with its creative flavors and impactful ads. Coke seems to be going more for the White Claw audience than trying to capitalize on the audience already familiar with Topo Chico, since the image released shows a tall can, labeled “Tangy Lemon Lime” flavor and similar in shape to White Claw, rather than the traditional glass bottles of the non-alcoholic seltzer.