When liquor meets candy

Buzz: Hey, Marnie. I just heard a radio ad for vodka that tastes like whipped cream and marshmallows. Is that a Halloween prank?

Marnie: No. As horrifying as it might sound, those are real products, and they are getting popular, too. In the last few years, the proliferation of flavored vodkas has pushed distillers to be creative. We used to see only fruit flavors like lemon and raspberry, but once the dessert barrier was crossed with flavors like vanilla and chocolate, there was no going back. Now, you can find vodkas that taste like everything from S'mores to cotton candy.

Buzz: What's the world coming to? When I was young, we learned to drink the hard way, with cheap whiskey, and left the candy behind.

Marnie: Well, it's true that modern spirits that feature dessert and candy flavors are most popular with those under 30, largely because they disguise the fiery impact of drinking alcohol. But drinks with training wheels are nothing new, like Kahlua and Midori. But they're so high in sugar and low in alcohol, they are hard to drink alone and are most often mixed with other ingredients to make drinks like White Russians or Melonballs.

Flavored vodkas may be sweet but they're no more sugary than a Cosmopolitan or a Jack and Coke.

Buzz: I think it's terrible that they target kids with liquor ads.

Marnie: We may think of kids as the major candy consumers, especially around Halloween, but adults purchase almost all candy and eat a lot of it, too. If vodka in flavors like butterscotch and candy cane didn't appeal to a significant chunk of the over-21 crowd, it wouldn't be crowding liquor store shelves. What we're seeing is a cultural shift, where the line between food and booze is blurring. Pennsylvania stores currently stock over a dozen different vodkas in "baked goods" flavors, from chocolate cake to apple pie.

Buzz: I think the whole idea is half-baked.