How White Claw took over Davidson
by Ariana Howard
At promptly 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, Davidson students stream from their dorm rooms to head “down the hill” to the senior apartment complex known as “F.” Men who are in fraternities occupy F’s first-floor apartments, and on weekends, they crank up the music and bust out the alcohol.
The party scene might sound familiar to earlier generations of college students. Some come to chat with friends in the courtyard. Others dance or play beer pong. No matter what they’re doing, nearly everyone holds a canned drink. Until the spring of 2019, that beverage was overwhelmingly beer. Today, it is more likely to be White Claw.
The story of how hard seltzer came to dominate Davidson’s party scene illustrates why the drink — a carbonated and flavored alcoholic beverage, like La Croix with a kick — has become so popular across the country. It took advantage of fortunate timing, tapped into a market of health-conscious drinkers and has benefited from surprisingly strong inroads with men.
At Davidson, senior housing used to serve Franzia boxed wine or hard liquor in addition to beer. But lines and crowding became common, and party hosts worried about serving drinks with high alcohol content.
For those reasons, hard liquor and wine slowly began disappearing at parties, making beer the primary drink option at F.
And then hard seltzer exploded. From 2018 to 2019, hard seltzer sales tripled, according to industry data.
Searching for ‘healthier’ alternative: Once students returned from winter break in January 2019, it seemed as though everyone was suddenly drinking hard seltzer, particularly White Claw, at parties. Students were in desperate need of a refreshing, ready-to-go beverage that they could drink at parties with the same ease as beer but with a better taste.
Some students say they perceive White Claw as a safer and healthier alternative. Since each hard seltzer lists alcohol content on the can, unlike mixed drinks, students believe hard seltzer may promote safer drinking at Davidson. “Hard seltzer is replacing mixed drinks [for me] almost entirely,” says senior Marina Shallcross.
‘Pre-game’ alternative: For senior AC Keesler, hard seltzer is a drink to begin with at pre-games instead of going straight into shots. “My stomach gets full faster so I’m not consuming as much,” she explains.
Due to the taste, price and ease of hard seltzer, refrigerators inside every first floor F apartment are now stocked with both beer and hard seltzer.
But it doesn’t appeal only to women. An informal poll by the school newspaper, the Davidsonian, found that women prefer hard seltzer over beer (68%), and men enjoy beer and hard seltzer equally. Nationally, a study by Bank of America Merrill Lynch found that 50% of the consumers of White Claw, the top selling hard seltzer brand, are men.
“Honestly, a lot of our guys like it a lot,” says senior Jack Heaps, president of Kappa Sigma. “Last spring, my friends and I drank White Claw more than beer, I’d say. It’s just so much lighter. … Maybe initially there was pushback from the masculine stereotype sense that [hard seltzer] was more ‘girly’ than beer or whatever, but at least in my circles, it’s totally destigmatized at this point.”
When the fraternity brothers began buying hard seltzer for parties, they initially wanted to supply an alternative beverage to beer in order to appeal to the female students on campus. But they soon found out that male students were drinking the White Claw, too.
Outpacing beer: One of Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s social chairs, senior Connor Penegar, reported in October that his fraternity would begin buying more hard seltzer than beer for parties. “At the moment,” he explained, “we are trying to find a ratio that works for us. For example, on our upcoming bulk pickup, we are buying 60% seltzer and 40% beer.”
With its popularity, White Claw sometimes draws comparisons to Zima Clearmalt, a lightly carbonated alcoholic beverage introduced in 1993 by Coors Brewing Co. While considered an alternative to beer, Zima, unlike White Claw, was not considered a healthier alternative. It had more calories and carbs than light beer. White Claw has fewer.
Davidson students think hard seltzer has staying power. “It’s easy to drink, it’s only 5% alcohol, so it’s not super aggressive, and it’s not heavy like beer,” Keesler says. What it really comes down to, she explained, is that White Claw is simply “more refreshing.”
Ariana Howard is a senior at Davidson College who is majoring in political science. She works for the newspaper at Davidson and hopes to pursue a career in journalism upon graduating.
The Ledger produced this article in partnership with The Davidsonian, Davidson’s college paper. It originally appeared in the Dec. 23, 2019, edition of The Ledger. Read the full newsletter here.
