[Exclusive] Gen Z Who Like Gatherings but Dislike Alcohol... Emart Develops Non-Alcoholic Highball

Alcohol Under 1% Adult Beverage 'Zen Highball Flavor 0.0%'
Can-Type RTD Product... First in Sales Channel
Targeting Healthy Drinking Culture 'Sober Life'

Emart is launching a canned non-alcoholic highball. It is an RTD (Ready to Drink) product that reduces the burden of alcohol while preserving the authentic taste and aroma of a traditional highball. Although non-alcoholic beer led by liquor companies has already become common in the market, Emart is the first among domestic sales channels to develop and release a non-alcoholic highball.

According to industry sources on the 16th, Emart will officially launch the non-alcoholic highball product "Zen Highball Hyang 0.0%" in stores as early as the 19th. The product comes in a 350ml can and is priced at 1,980 KRW per can. A promotional discount event will also be held to commemorate the launch.

E-Mart Headquarters, Sunhwa-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yong-jun

Zen Highball Hyang 0.0% was created with the concept of an adult beverage that tastes like a whiskey-flavored highball. It is a carbonated drink targeting the so-called "Sober Life" culture of the Gen-Z generation (born from the mid-1990s to early 2010s), who want to enjoy the atmosphere of drinking occasions without getting drunk or worrying about health. The product name reflects this by taking the sound from "Gen-Z."

Under current Korean liquor tax law, beverages with an alcohol content below 1% are classified as drinks, and those with 1% or higher as alcoholic beverages. Among drinks with less than 1% alcohol, those with less than 0.00% (calculated to two decimal places) are considered non-alcoholic, and those between 0.0% and less than 1% are classified as low-alcohol. Zen Highball Hyang 0.0% contains a trace amount of alcohol remaining from the manufacturing process, so the product name indicates it is a "non-alcoholic beverage with highball flavor." It is not significantly different from non-alcoholic drinks in that it can be enjoyed without intoxication. In line with the "healthy pleasure" trend of enjoying health responsibly, it is made sugar-free with zero sugar and contains about 9 kcal, making it low-calorie.

Great effort was made to replicate the authentic "taste" of a traditional highball. Non-alcoholic beverages are generally produced by boiling, filtering, or centrifuging to remove alcohol from existing alcoholic beverages, but these methods often result in inferior taste compared to the original. To overcome this, Emart utilized powdered "kombucha" produced by the beverage specialist Tizen to recreate the taste and aroma of a highball. Emart’s liquor buyer Myung Yong-jin proposed the idea to Tizen, and after three months of sensory evaluation (a method of quantifying food taste and aroma through human senses), an RTD product with optimized carbonation pressure and aroma was developed. Buyer Myung is a liquor expert who received the "Jurade de Saint-?milion," one of the three major wine knighthoods in France.

The non-alcoholic and low-alcohol product market in the liquor and beverage sector is rapidly growing. According to global liquor and beverage market research firms IWRS and Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation’s Agricultural Food Export Information (KATI), the global non- and low-alcohol market grew at an average annual rate of 5% from 2018 to 2022 and is expected to increase to 7% annually from 2022 to 2026. For example, in the U.S., total sales in the non-alcoholic category increased by 29% year-on-year last year, and the low-alcohol category grew by 7%. In Korea, based on Emart data, sales of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beer from January to June 12 this year rose 21% compared to the same period last year, significantly outpacing the 5% growth rate of regular beer sales.

Although non-alcoholic beer and soda still account for more than 80% of the related beverage market, the industry expects the non- and low-alcohol category to expand soon to include wine and distilled spirits. In the liquor sector, the growth of highballs has been notable following the COVID-19 pandemic, as the "home drinking" trend and "mixology" trend?mixing alcohol with beverages or fruits?have spread.

The popularity of whiskey and tonic water, ingredients used in highballs, supports this trend. According to market research firm Euromonitor, the domestic whiskey market nearly doubled from 2.6796 trillion KRW in 2020 to 5.6224 trillion KRW last year, and the tonic water market grew approximately 2.5 times from 53.4 billion KRW to about 130 billion KRW during the same period.

Emart expects that "Zen Highball Hyang 0.0%" will be a good choice for consumers who want to enjoy drinking occasions without getting intoxicated or those who avoid alcohol due to health concerns, as it focuses on replicating the authentic taste and aroma of a traditional highball.