Statements

April 4, 2007 - Anheuser-Busch is urging retailers to “Spyke up your sales with our new product, Spykes…a prepackaged [12 percent alcohol] beverage created to add to beer.”  The product, which comes in small attractive bottles about the size of a nail polish bottle, has four flavors: Hot Chocolate, Spicy Lime, Hot Melons, and Spicy Mango.  Anheuser-Busch says, “a Spykes pour takes beer up a notch by adding a caffeinated rush and a sweet taste that finishes hot.”

This product is sure to attract underage drinkers.  No 30- or 40-year-old beer drinker is going to add hot chocolate or some other flavor to make beer more palatable — but kids will and when they do they will get two drinks in one.

Anheuser-Busch well knows that the younger kids are when they start drinking, and the more they drink, the likelier they are to become excessive adult drinkers.  Spykes is a predatory move to attract underage drinkers who already account for almost 20 percent ‑ $23 billion ‑ of alcohol sales. 

The Anheuser-Busch Spykes product and marketing is reminiscent of the sweetening and flashy names that Reynolds Tobacco used in its abortive effort to attract young smokers.  Like the alcohol company, the tobacco company sweetened the flavors of cigarettes and gave them flashy names, ranging from Beach Breeze (watermelon) to Bayou Blast (berry) to Kauai Kolada (pineapple and coconut).  Eventually, confronted with the outrage of the public health community, Reynolds stopped selling these cigarettes in the United States.

Just as Anheuser-Busch has followed Reynolds Tobacco’s efforts to sweeten its cigarettes with an attempt to sweeten its beer, Anheuser-Bush should follow the tobacco company and stop selling Spykes.  Retailers and liquor stores should refuse to put this child friendly 12 percent alcohol sweetener that “gives a kick to your beer” on their shelves.