Coca-Cola Launches First Ever Alcoholic Beverage
The first alcoholic Coca-Cola beverage has officially been launched. Lemon-Do, a lemon-flavored fizzy drink made with alcohol became available May 28, but only in Japan. According to the BBC, the drinks are meant to compete with other popular Japanese drinks known as chuhai. These drinks, often marketed as "chu-hi" and named for a contraction of "shochu highball," are canned mixtures of the traditional grain-based alcohol and flavored carbonated water.
Lemon-Do is the first alcoholic beverage Coca-Cola has sold in its 132-year history. It comes in three different levels of booziness and two flavors: Shoppers can select 3-percent, 5-percent, or 7-percent alcohol in either salty lemon or honey and lemon, according to The Wall Street Journal.
"We've started to experiment because, in the end, we are trying to follow the consumer. And, in the case of Japan, this is a relatively well-developed segment of low alcohol," the outlet reports Coca-Cola chief executive James Quincey as saying at a shareholder meeting on April 26.
According to Fortune, the company does not currently have plans to offer more alcoholic beverages or to offer this particular beverage to a wider market. Still haven't kicked your soda habit? These 18 facts about diet soda might finally make you stop drinking it.