Four Loko Teases New Seltzer With Nearly Triple To Alcohol Content Of Its Competitors

Four Loko, an alcoholic beverage line once popular with millennials, appears to be jumping on the hard seltzer trend in an extreme way. In a series of tweets, Four Loko teased a seltzer boasting a much higher alcohol-by-volume amount than its main competitors.

The brand tweeted a photo of a can labeled Four Loko Sour Seltzer "with a hint of blue razz" and a 14% ABV. "Hard Seltzers ran so we could fly," Four Loko's Twitter account wrote Tuesday, showing rival brands in soft-focus in the background.

Four Loko joins a crowded list of alcoholic beverage lines entering the hard seltzer market, which now includes beer makers Pabst Blue Ribbon, Corona, Natural Light and others. But Four Loko's drink — which brags of being "The Hardest Seltzer In The Universe" — has nearly triple the alcohol content of popular product lines such as Bon & Viv Spiked Seltzer (4.5% ABV), White Claw Hard Seltzer (5% ABV) and Truly Hard Seltzer (5% ABV).

It is unclear when the product will be available in stores. CBS News reached out multiple times to Phusion Projects, the company that owns Four Loko, for more information, but did not receive a response back.

Four Loko, once a caffeine-spiked alcoholic drink, was banned in several states and reformulated under pressure from the FDA in 2010. It no longer contains caffeine. 

A year later, the company was told to change its labels and the Federal Trade Commission charged it with deceptive advertising. The company had claimed the drink had an alcohol equivalent of two beers, when in fact it contains as much alcohol as four to five beers.

First published on August 14, 2019 / 5:39 PM

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