What Were This Year's Dominant Alcohol Trends? ... 'Jjan (ZZAN)'

Zero(Zero Sugar)·Add(Collab)·Now(Ready-to-Drink Highball)

Bohae Brewery Hits Consumer Preferences with Trend-Reflecting New Product Launches

As the end of the year approaches, industry-specific reports reflecting on the past year and forecasting next year’s market are emerging one after another.

The alcohol industry, sensitive to trends, had a busy year launching various new products and promotions to match the increased drinking occasions brought by the full-scale endemic.

Despite the revitalization of the offline market, the robust home drinking market saw whiskey and distilled spirits gain attention, giving rise to a ‘new drinking culture.’

We examined Bohae Brewery’s key alcohol trend keywords, which successfully captured trends quickly and applied them to marketing to hit consumer preferences.

In the soju market, ‘zero sugar’ has now become the standard.

As healthy pleasure, the desire to enjoy food and beverages more healthily, continues to attract attention, the alcohol industry has released sugar-free soju and renewed existing products as ‘zero’ versions.

Prior to this trend, in 2021, before ‘zero sugar’ gained attention, Bohae Brewery broke the long-held industry stereotype that ‘bitterness is eliminated by sweetness’ by launching ‘Bohae Soju,’ which uses salt to neutralize bitterness.

Unlike most diluted soju on the market that uses sugar substitutes to create flavor for zero sugar, Bohae Soju incorporates Sinan topan salt, one of the world’s top three salts, to achieve a clean taste.

Bohae Soju, popular for its fresh concept, entered convenience stores and large supermarkets nationwide and surpassed 2 million bottles sold within a year of its launch.

This year, Bohae Brewery actively pursued social contribution activities aimed at protecting the sea where the salt used in Bohae Soju is harvested.

They opened the nation’s first ‘Bohae Soju Plogging Center,’ specializing in plogging experiences, and operated a ‘Small Action Store’ where various goods can be produced, accelerating marketing for Bohae Soju, a representative zero sugar product using salt.

‘Unique’ collaborations aligned with the MZ generation’s pursuit of new experiences also continued.

The highly expandable alcohol industry showcased collaborations not only within the same food category but also with characters, games, technology, and various other fields.

In March this year, Bohae Brewery collaborated with dessert cafe Sulbing to launch ‘Sulbing Heukimja Sunhui’ Makgeolli.

This is the second collaboration following ‘Sulbing Injeolmi Sunhui,’ which ranked first in sales in the Homeplus Makgeolli category within two weeks of its release last year.

Sulbing Heukimja Sunhui is made with 100% domestically grown rice, resulting in a less heavy and clean Sunhui Makgeolli with the addition of savory black sesame, appealing to the ‘Halmaennial’ (grandmother + millennial) palate and receiving positive responses.

With the rapid growth of the whiskey and highball market in Korea, ‘RTD (Ready To Drink)’ canned highballs are also gaining popularity.

The key to their popularity is that consumers can easily enjoy delicious highballs without worrying about whiskey blends or ingredients.

Bohae Brewery’s plum highball ‘Soon,’ launched in May this year, is also an RTD canned product that can be purchased at convenience stores and consumed immediately.

Sales of RTD highballs at GS25, the sales channel for plum highball ‘Soon,’ increased by 221.5% in the third quarter compared to the first quarter.

Unlike other RTD canned highballs on the market that add only aroma with oak chips, plum highball ‘Soon’ uses a base of Scotch whiskey made by traditional methods.

Additionally, Bohae Brewery adds clean Haenam plums they cultivate themselves, allowing consumers to enjoy a rich flavor simply in a can.

A Bohae Brewery representative said, “Going forward, Bohae Brewery will continue to provide consumers with diverse alcohol choices through active product development based on long-standing know-how, and strengthen marketing and communication.”