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Mike's Hard Lemonade takes the malt category to a new level
When Mike's Hard Lemonade entered the U.S. market in 1999, it was one of the pioneers of today's flavored malt beverage category. Since then, the market for FMBs has inspired some big-name competition, some of which came and went in a hurry. But the Mike's brand managed to hold on to a leadership position, and now the company is out to create another new category, the malt cocktail, with the launch of the Mike-arita and Mike's Hard Frozen Lemonade.
Mike's was created by Anthony von Mandl, owner of parent company Mark Anthony Brands, although he prefers the title "Chief Lemon Squeezer." In addition to Mike's, von Mandl's business includes a beer and wine distributorship and a winery in Canada.
"I've always been in the beverage alcohol business," he says. "It's a business that's always fascinated me and it's the only thing I've ever done."
The Mike's brand, he says, was the result of watching the wine cooler market take off during the '80s, and trying to find a similar product that men would feel comfortable drinking - in public, that is.
"Coolers, at their peak, sold well over 60 million cases and that was only basically to women and certainly not on-premise, only off-premise," von Mandl says. "Men had to be in the closet, so to speak, to drink a wine cooler. But I always believed there was a demand ... I just didn't realize how long it would take to come up with a compelling brand."
The brand he ultimately developed had an irreverent personality, which von Mandl describes as "comfortable and not aspirational" - its marketing, for example, features a talking bottle. Over the years, the company has expanded from Lemonade to a stable of flavors such as Cranberry Lemonade, Lime, Berry and Crisp Apple.
"We take some of the basic American things like lemonade and we add alcohol to it, we put cranberries in it," he says. "We do things with a quirky way but they're things everyone can relate to. That's the essence of the brand."
The company took the malt category a step further this year with the launch of the Mike-arita and Mike's Hard Frozen Lemonade. While...