The latest additions into the world of RTD cocktails.
The premixed cocktail category continues to soar, long past its initial boom during the Covid era. According to the latest data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, sales of spirit-based ready-to-drink offerings are now totaling around $2.8 billion per year. As a result, an ongoing parade of marquee brands are entering the space. The latest example comes from Crystal Head, the award-winning vodka launched by actor Dan Aykroyd and artist John Alexander back in 2008.
Debuting later this spring, the 100ml cans will be available in two flavors: Espresso Martini and Cosmopolitan. They offer the ingredient-driven quality and consistency of the same popular preparations made at your favorite local bar. Only you don’t have to leave home to savor them. And they’ll only cost you $5 per pour. So the appeal is obvious.
But for Aykroyd, the point of separation all begins with the quality of the spirit at its base. “We use peaches and cream corn for our mash— a single farm strain originally from the 1800s,” he tells Forbes. “Then we mix that with glacial aquifer water from the Wisconsin glacier, which sat over the northeastern part of North America 16,000 years ago. When it melted over Newfoundland it produced all of these beautiful lakes and ponds and this phenomenal supply of untouched, unpolluted water directly underneath.”
Crystal Head’s flagship vodka is distilled four times and then run through agitated carbon filtration seven times after that. “You’re looking at pretty much the purest vodka on the planet,” he adds. “We’re the only vodka, to the best of my knowledge, that has no additives in it at all.”
As such, it makes an ideal blank canvas upon which these cocktail modifiers can paint, unencumbered by off-notes. The Espresso Martini exerts slightly sweetened, fresh brewed mocha roast on the tongue. The Cosmopolitan is a tart and tangy crowd pleaser. But why did Aykroyd and company believe now was the moment to enter RTD?
"We didn’t want to miss out on the growing trend,” admits the actor and Ghostbusters writer, who has perpetually maintained an active role in the growth of the brand. “We are right about to hit that crest and we’re going to come on very strong with this. We’ll be in the national chains with it and I can just see the marketing: beachfront resorts, a big barrel or washtub filled with ice and these cans thrown in there. I think they’re going to move beautifully.”
Crystal Head has been a profitable liquor brand since launch. Aykroyd attributes the success to quality product, of course, but also to building strong personal relationships with distributors and bartenders across North America—and tirelessly promoting the goods all along the way.
DUESSELDORF, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 19: Dan Aykroyd poses with a bottle of 'Crystal Head' vodka at ... [+]
“I was just at AMC theater doing a cocktail for the new Ghostbusters movie,” he says, during an exclusive sampling of the new RTDs. “We do videos, we do events—because we don’t have the big resources of Remy, or LVMH or Diageo. But if we ever partnered with a group like that, boy, it would take them about two years to turn this into a mega-brand, with their staff and their sales people. Right now we have a super-brand now. But that would be a mega-brand.”
Is that something that he’s actually interested in? “It all depends on the terms,” he says. “Right now we are happy to finance these initiative ourselves. We’re having fun with it. It’s been consistently profitable all the way through. So now we’re putting that money back into agency. It’s all about boots on the grounds. We’re confident with it.”
He’s also confident that the latest installment in the Ghostbusters franchise (Frozen Empire, premiering March 14th) will be a hit, just the same. The cinematic universe he created 40 years ago is still going strong. And it involves subject matter that he clearly holds near and dear to his heart.
“I’m a spiritualist, that’s what I believe in,” he explains. “I believe that with the proper trans-channel medium you can reach to the other side and talk with those that have gone before. My great grandfather was a spiritualist. And he wrote about mediumship.
“I grew up reading those journals as a kid. It was kind of the family business. The afternoon that I conceived and originated Ghostbusters, I was in the old family barn where actual seances took place. It just came to me: we’ll do an old style Abbott and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis-type ghost movie with all of those comic values, but using the real vernacular. Who knew what ectoplasm was before the original Ghostbusters?”
Clearly Aykroyd is passionate about spirits, both beyond and inside the bottle—or can, as the case will soon be.
The new Espresso Martini RTD from Crystal Head is available now.
