I've been seeing these for quite some time at liquor stores, and recently I finally decided to give them a go. These were BuzzBallz cocktails, from the LLC of the same name. I tried the berry cherry limeade, and the grapes gone wild flavor.
As the origin story on the official BuzzBallz website revealed, this company was begun by one person, a woman named Merrilee Kick. While working toward her Master's degree, in the early 2000s, she was also employed as a teacher (or maybe as a teaching assistant? It's unclear.). While grading papers by her pool one hot summer day, Kick desired an adult concoction, an alcoholic beverage. Specifically one served in a plastic container rather than in a glass, since the latter is more breakable. Kick thought it over, and was inspired by a glass votive she'd gotten on a vacation. (Votives are religious offerings, such as candles, etc.) Her resulting drink container was, well, a ball shape. The easy open top was then inspired by the tops of a typical tennis ball can. Anyway, Kick finished off her MBA, at Texas Women's University, and then started researching the alcoholic beverage industry in earnest. With some financial help from her family, Kick founded BuzzBallz in 2009. Since then the business has flourished. BuzzBallz makes four types of drinks, with the main difference between them apparently being the size of the bottle. Chillers are 187 mL, or 6.32 ounces. The mixed drinks are 192 mL, or 6.5 ounces. Cocktails are 200 mL, or 6.76 ounces. And the Biggies are 1.75 liters. All the drinks are 15% alcohol, or 30 proof. The flavors are often a bit unusual for an alcoholic drink, and may be combined flavors. Some examples include a passion fruit martini, pineapple jalapeno, espresso martini, horchata, forbidden apple, and choc tease. Some flavors, like the grapes gone wild, are available in more than one size. Also, Buzzballs was acquired by the mammoth liquor company Sazerac in 2024, although Kick is still the reigning CEO.
BuzzBallz cocktails, berry cherry limeade flavor: Had a blue color, and a limey odor. I didn't taste any berry, nor cherry flavors. I did detect the lime flavor, though. It still was pretty decent. Not great, but pretty good. So it didn't have most of the advertised flavors in it, to my palate, but the one that was there was well expressed. I would recommend it slightly. If anyone cares, the liquor base to this was vodka.
BuzzBallz cocktails, grapes gone wild flavor: This was a purple hue, obviously, and smelled of grapes. The taste was grape-y too. I would have preferred a slightly stronger grape flavor. This one also tasted boozier--it didn't hide the alcohol as well as the previous one. Overall the grapes gone wild variety was only mediocre--it wasn't as good as the berry cherry limeade. However, since there are so many alternate flavors, some quite odd, I do plan on trying more. If/when that happens I'll amend this post.
While looking into BuzzBallz LLC, I did learn that the company has its detractors. Some people, and organizations, accuse it of targeting underage customers. They cite its bright colors, bright labels, drink names, and overall design as being overly appealing to adolescents. I didn't see BuzzBallz's, or Merrilee Kick's response to this--presumably they/she would point out that other drinks have eye-catching, vibrantly-hued labels and bottles, with fun and unusual names, and they're just trying to attract drinkers of legal age. Additionally, Generation Z (typically this generation is defined as being those born between 1997-2012) BuzzBallz consumers allegedly have a dare, or game attached to a BuzzBallz product. Individuals try to consume an entire Biggie container (or 1.75 liters) in one sitting. Which, given its size, and alcohol content, is foolhardy, and could result in a trip to the hospital, or even death by alcohol poisoning. So I'm certainly strongly recommending against attempting this.
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