With warmer weather finally on the horizon, beverage brands are upping their game by offering consumers products that taste great and travel well to beaches, ballgames, poolside and the like. When I first tried Beatbox Beverage’s Pink Lemonade, not only was I intrigued by its citrusy taste, I had consumed an alcohol product encased in a bag with instructions to “give it a slap.”

With an 11.1 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), the product comes in three flavors: Pink Lemonade, Fruit Punch and Blue Razzberry. It is packaged in 16.9-ounce Tetra Pak cartons, and 3- and 5-liter bag-in-box cartons.

For added versatility and functionality, Beatbox products can be consumed straight or used as a mixer. The 5-liter offering is the equivalent of 40 beers, 34 mixed drinks and 7 wine bottles in one convenient product that also cuts down on packaging waste, the website states.

The growth of boxed wines, canned wines and alternative formats also are resonating in the beverage industry. Black Box Wines, a premium boxed wine, recently launched a rewards program, the first of its kind in the wine/alcohol category, the company said in a statement.

Although premium box only accounts for 5.3 percent share of dollars in the wine category, it accounts for 30.6 percent of growth in multi-outlets and convenience stores, data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI) for the 52 weeks ending July 15, 2018, suggests.

Canned wine contributed $12.2 million in new category dollars while boxed wine added $82.8 million, states IRI data for the same time period.

The Flexible Packaging Association notes that flexible packaging represents more than $31 billion in annual sales in the United States and is the second largest, and one of the fastest growing segments of the packaging industry.