Alcoholic soft drinks

Beverages with the flavour and character of soft drinks — typically fruit-flavoured, sweet and carbonated — but containing a significant concentration of alcohol, known as alcopops or ready-to-drink products. Their candy-like taste and bright packaging drew regulatory scrutiny over appeal to young drinkers, prompting tax and labelling responses in many countries. The category has since matured into hard seltzers and canned cocktails, but the original tension remains: drinks engineered to taste like soda carry the pharmacology of spirits, and regulators treat that combination with caution.