Utica, N.Y. — Utica’s F.X. Matt (Saranac) Brewing is expanding its reach into beverages that aren’t beer.
Saranac announced this week it is partnering with two other top East Coast breweries on a new line of canned fruit-infused vodka cocktails.
The new beverages, called Vodka Whips, contain 7.5% alcohol and come in four flavors — Orange, Wild Berry, Watermelon and Pineapple. They’re hitting the shelves this month in 15 states along the East Coast from Maine to Georgia. Orange and Wild Berry will be sold in 4-packs of 12-ounce cans, and all the flavors can be found in 8-can variety packs.
Vodka Whips are made by Right Coast Spirits, a new company formed by Saranac along with Harpoon Brewery of Boston and Flying Dog Brewery of Frederick, Md. Vodka Whips are packaged at the Utica brewery, which last year completed a $35 million expansion project to increase its capacity to make beverages other than beer.
Vodka Whips are part of the continuing trend for brewers across the country and around the world to produce non-beer alcohol. Those include canned cocktails containing real spirits, flavored malt beverages (like Mike’s Hard Lemonade or Bud Light Lime-A-Ritas), and the hottest of all, hard seltzers.
For Matt/Saranac, the oldest family-owned brewery in New York, it’s a business they’ve been growing for several years.
Four years ago, 85% of the brewery’s output was in “traditional” beers, company president Fred Matt said. That’s fallen to about 60% recently, he said.
Pursuing new non-beer beverages is a deliberate business decision to keep up with the current trends, he said.
“I have millennial kids, and I’m watching how their drinking habits are changing the business,” Matt said. “We’ve been in craft beer for 30 years, and it’s been great. But to have your business tied up in one liquid, even something as good as craft, that’s putting your business at risk. So we are making the intentional decision to diversify.”
That started several years ago with Matt’s own line of soft drinks and its introduction of green tea-infused hard seltzers.
The Utica brewery has also been making products containing distilled spirits under contract for other companies. That includes the Finnish Long Drink (a canned cocktail that is considered the national drink of Finland), and another line of canned cocktails called Ohza Mimosas.
Vodka Whips are the first canned cocktails containing spirits in which Saranac has an ownership stake in the brand.
Fred Matt said the decision to form Right Coast was built on relationships his brewery had with the other partners over the years.
“The cool thing I’ve always loved about the craft brewing industry is that we have this hallmark ‘all-for-one’ mentality,” Matt said. “The three of us had a great working relationship already, so we realized if we worked together, we could get a superior product to consumers faster and more efficiently.”
The Utica brewery, at Edward and Varick streets, obtained a state distilling license when it launched the Finnish Long Drink, because it needed that to package a product containing hard liquor. But it does not distill its own spirits and Right Coast is sourcing its vodka from a distillery in the Midwest.
Right Coast Spirits takes its name from a playful nod to the East Coast where the partner breweries are located. The packaging says the Vodka Whips are “whipped with real fruit.”
The concept of Vodka Whips was inspired by the Orange Crush cocktail, which is popular in the mid-Atlantic states, Flying Dog chief marketing officer Ben Savage said.
More on beer and other craft beverages in CNY:
Syracuse’s quirkiest brewery to cease operations and close taproom
New breweries open in Syracuse and Cortland County and other local craft beer updates
Upstate NY’s hottest new beer and music fest is coming to Onondaga County
Coming soon to Syracuse: A self-serve beer bar with a dedicated food truck park
Crafting Drinks: Meet 6 Finger Lakes beverage makers pushing the limits on creativity
Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
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