Six things winning Gen Z brands are doing — and Big Alcohol needs to emulate
Three years ago the trade said: Gen Z don’t drink.
Two years ago it said: Gen Z drink moderately.
By 2025 Bevtrac were telling us Gen Z category participation had jumped to 76% in the UK & 70% in the US
March 2026 UCL data says 68% of UK 23-year-olds now binge drink, 29% at least monthly, which is more than Millennials did at the same age.
They’re at the bar. They’re going out more often, drinking more selectively, spending less per visit, and bingeing harder when they do drink. But, most importantly for Big Alcohol, they aren’t picking the heritage premium brands the trade has spent the last decade building.
They’re picking smaller brands that ‘get them’: Au Vodka turned over £82.8m and overtook Gordon’s in RTDs. BuzzBallz grew 800% in the UK. Trip is valued at $300m. Liquid Death at $1.4bn. Poppi sold to PepsiCo for $1.95bn.
We’ve analysed what makes these winning Gen Z brands ‘tick’, and it’s clear. Big Alcohol has a limited opportunity to catch up.
The reality
They’re at the bar more, not less.
Data shows a 10-point upswing in Gen Z going out in 2025. 49% visit “third-space” venues weekly. 50% are at the pub between 8 and 10pm, six points above the UK national average (CGA October 2025). The cohort the industry wrote off as sober one is now over-indexing on bar visits at every time slot the trade cares about.
They’re spending less per visit.
CGA: £98 per month on-trade, against £123 for Millennials. Circana via the Wall Street Journal: total Gen Z spending across all categories fell 13% year-on-year between January and April 2025. The cohort has less money to spend and is making harder choices about what gets it.
They’re choosing fewer brands per night.
IWSR’s Feb 2026 Bevtrac data: Gen Z dropped from 2.8 to 1.8 drink categories per occasion in two years. They’ve started to find brands that finally match their tastes. And it isn’t the heritage one. £1bn came off the premium spirits category last year
They’re bingeing when they do drink.
UCL’s Millennium Cohort Study, March 2026, near 10,000 UK respondents born 2000-02: 68% binge drank in the past year. 29% binge once a month or more.
They’re choosing brands that ‘get them’.
Au Vodka, BuzzBallz, Trip, Liquid Death, Poppi, OLIPOP, Celsius, Bero, Cut Classics, Cream Heroes. All are growing. None has a master distiller. None has a 200-year heritage story. The category is being restructured by brands with a very different ‘vibe’.
The driving forces
They’re skint.
Recent graduate unemployment hit 5.7% in Q4 2025, above the national rate. 24% of UK and EU 18-34s rate AI job-loss anxiety at 8 or higher on a ten-point scale. Median age of US first-time homebuyers rose from 29 to 40 in a decade. This is the first generation in living memory that anticipates being less affluent than its parents.
They’re lonely.
GWI, November 2024: 80% of Gen Z felt lonely in the past 12 months. Pew, 2023: 56% of Gen Z 18-29 are single, the highest single rate ever recorded. Half of those aren’t actively looking. The Institute for Family Studies: only a third of adults 18-64 are having sex weekly, against 55% in 1990. The “sex recession” is now a measurable phenomenon. Going to the bar is one of the ways they’re trying to be less alone.
They’re mentally ‘overdrawn’.
Climate, AI, work, identity, politics, dating, debt. Gen Z has no headspace left to learn the drinks category, decode its heritage, or read its back-label. Whatever you sell them has to be understood in the three seconds it takes to walk to the bar or shelf. The brands that win with Gen Z have, almost without exception, made it easier for them at every point.
They believe, but don’t act.
The generation that says climate matters most, recycles least. 44% of Gen Z recycle “often” or “always”, against 67% of Boomers (Boxed Water). 50% say they’ll go meat-free; only 14% actually do (Finder UK; Attest). 64% say they prefer sustainable and ethical brands (Statista 2025), yet 67% bought from Shein the same year (Cotton Inc). The planet needs to be saved, and people should be treated fairly; but they don’t feel they have the power to do it themselves – so reward the brands that do it for them, at a price they can afford.
They’re frustrated, bordering on resentful.
US Boomers hold $77 trillion in wealth. Gen Z hold under 10% of that. Just 42% trust corporates (Salesforce). Only 48% think businesses have a positive impact on society (Deloitte). “Big Pharma”, “Big Food”, “Big Tech”, “Big Alcohol” — the category prefix is now pejorative. A brand created inside “Big X” almost automatically starts with a trust deficit.
Gen Z doesn’t perceive premium pricing as aspirational. They see it as exploitative. A £40 craft gin isn’t craftsmanship — it’s all markup. A heritage spirits brand isn’t romance – it’s a brand sold to the affluent classes that they hold responsible for their own personal lack of wealth.
That’s the cohort. Precarious, lonely, disempowered, angry, overdrawn — but strangely idealistic — and at the bar.
Six dimensions of brands Gen Z will buy
Six dimensions of winning Gen Z brands …
#1 Photogenic: A visual experience
Why: This generation grew up with social media. Every drink is a public statement. It’s part of every story they post, every group chat they share to. If the pack and product don’t look great in the photograph, it doesn’t make it to the till.
What: What it looks like: distinctive shape, colour, silhouette, ideally an instantly recognisable serve. Recognisable from a thumbnail. Barely needs a logo to be identified.
Au Vodka’s gold packs and vivid liquids.
Blank Streets TikTock-able limited editions.
Stanley’s instantly recognisable drink-cups.
BuzzBalls’ brightly coloured plastic spheres.
#2 Single minded: A solution in a sentence
Why: Each winning brand single-mindedly meets a moment or provides a solution. They’re choosing fewer brands per night because each one meets a need better. This is for getting ready. This is for looking good. This is for removing sobriety. This is for not ruining tomorrow morning. A brand that tries to be all things to all moments can’t be summarised. A brand that can’t be summarised doesn’t get picked.
What it looks like: The brand mission & purpose can be expressed in seven words.
Collider is the: mood-boosting 0.5% alc session IPA alternative
Trip promises: a mindful calming blend – and the appeal was clear
Impossibrew’s proposition is simple: a relaxing IPA with no alcohol or hangover
Murder your thirst was a huge success for Liquid Death in the US, but flopped in the UK.
#3 Cognitive efficiency: How it works, on front of pack:
Why Gen Z has no spare brain space. If the claim isn’t expressed bluntly, in plain Gen Z English, on the front of the pack, they’ll pick the brand whose claim is better expressed. Better gut. Half the alcohol. Calmer evening. No hangover. One sentence. Front of pack. Done.
What it looks like: The functional benefit is in plain (Gen Z) English, not marketing fluff. The ingredients are listed clearly. The mechanism is named. The buyer doesn’t have to invest effort to decode the brand.
Collider’s mood-boosting blend of functional mushrooms and active botanicals delivers a euphoric calm without the need for alcohol.
Okay, Poppi didn’t add enough active prebiotic to justify the ‘happy gut’ claim- but Pepsico still thought it was worth $1.95bn.
Cann is the US THC and CBD infused, social drink without the hangover. The brand includes a Un-Spiked variant.
Classic Cut offers lifestyle-friendly spirits. The buzz and flavour you expect with half the alcohol and calorie intake.
#4 Good values: Built in, not sold as extras
Decent ingredients. No environmental damage. Fair sourcing. Gay-inclusive (particularly the women). Gen Z feels these should be a basic right, not features that justify a markup. Gen Z hate green-washing, pink-washing, etc; will aggressively sensure and punish brands that breach their ethical standards – and they won’t pay massive premiums just for an “eco” label;
What it looks like: Brands that win on sustainability & fairness. build the values structurally into the product at an everyday price. No surcharge for basic decency – and no preaching.
Liquid Death sells canned water at the price of regular canned water, and the no-plastic story is just what the product is.
Dash Water cracked the Gen Z market by targeting a massive ethical pain point for younger demographics: food waste
Lemonaid & ChariTea donate 5p from every bottle via their own Foundation. It’s already given £9m to local development project
Climate-positive brand Sapling plants a tree for every container sold. A tracking code lets consumers see where it was planted
#5 Realistically priced: The good stuff at a price they can afford more than once.
Why. A pint of Camden Hells in central London now averages £6 to £7. The pint isn’t expensive in absolute terms, but it is expensive relative to what they earn — and relative to the bubble tea round the corner at £5.50 that gets photographed, the £4 matcha at Blank Street that gets photographed, and the £50 Shein basket of six items that delivers six photographs and a massive hit of dopamine. Gen Z aren’t refusing to spend £6. They’re refusing to spend £6 on something that doesn’t give anything visible back.
What it looks like: Single-serve, small-format SKUs and multi-buys at affordable, everyday-indulgence price points, OR considered-purchase items that unleash dopamine and a high-credibility photo opportunity.
Whilst BuzzBallz are designed to be sold as single units at an affordable price point, regular buy 3 or 4-for-3 activity
At £4.5/£5 or around $8 Blank Street’s limited edition matchas are far from cheap, but they pay back in experience & pics
Gen Z are notoriously fickle, so £2.50 / £3 330ml cans vs £35 – £40 70cl bottles of premium-coded AU Vodka is a no-brainer.
Instead of watering a cocktail down into a giant 330ml seltzer, Whitebox cans, bar-strength serves in 100ml vessels at < £5.
#6 Gets me: Talks like a Gen Z peer, not a producer
Why: Gen Z hates being talked at. They trust TikTok creators, their group chats, their friends who’ve tried it – they don’t seem to care about the brand’s master distiller, heritage story, or the opinions of an expert in tweed. So the brands that win sound like ‘a mate’ who’d recommend them, not the institution behind them.
What it looks like: Plain language, phone-shot photography, a meme, a founder who sounds just like them and shares their humour – not a comms team. A brand voice that admits what they’re selling: water, beer, vodka, energy drink – without pretending it’s a luxury good or a spiritual experience.
BuzzBallz leans entirely into being brightly coloured, highly potent, spherical plastic containers designed for a wild time.
Surreal sounds like a friend annoyed at how dumb cereal marketing is – whilst also taking the mickey out of celeb endorsement.
Bero sounds like Tom Holland telling you why he made it as a way of counteracting his alcohol addiction & mental health issues.
Au shareholder Charlie Sloth may have paid Jake Paul $250k to wear a fake tattoo into the Fury fight- but Gen Z saw the funny side!
What this means for innovation teams
Can you ignore Gen Z because they’re broke, and wait for them to conform to older cohorts’ behaviour patterns? Hell no.
Can you stick with the premium pricing, branding and storytelling strategy and expect them to come around? Err, no.
The right direction: Build the values in. Bring the price down. Sharpen the mission. Speak like a peer. Make the pack worth picking up. The brands that have done these things are growing. The brands that haven’t are bleeding.
If your portfolio is currently failing more than two of these six, get in touch. There’s work to do, and a window that’s closing.
Need spotting?
Gen Z’s relationship with drinking is complex, and with alcoholic products is evolving fast. How about we recruit a panel of Gen Z drinkers and using a mix of social listening & immersion interviews help you get inside their heads – and start predicting their underlying & unexpressed needs?
Indicative costs
Actionable insight gathering starts from circa £9.5K
Outputs
A bank of unmet socialisation & entertainment needs to help your team get ahead of the game.
Cohort Concepting?
Are your current brands dead? Do you need to start from scratch – can they evolve as fast as Gen Z themselves? How about a creative workshop executed by Gen Z marketers, designers & category visionaries – to reinvent solutions they’d love to drink themselves?
Indicative costs
How about a strategic ideation workshop from circa £15K
Outputs
A bank of 100% relevant and authentic drink solutions generated by Gen Zs themselves.
Perfect propositions?
Rather than guess what Gen Zs want and hope you’ve created propositions with relevant missions, compelling mechanisms, entertaining & photogenic executions and resonant tones-of-voice – why not evaluate and craft them to perfection using co-creators with Gen Zs themselves?
Indicative costs
Proposition co-creation starts from circa £12.5K
Outputs
A pool of Gen Z optimised propositions.- with four-times greater probability of success in market*
Next?
If you’d like to chat, please contact us on +44 1491 411272 – or connect with David , Nick or Joanna on LinkedIn
We custom-build solutions for every client – that deliver brilliant results!
* Nielsen / McKinsey Innovation practice data