Boys at Schoolies guzzling vetoed Hard Solo as Gold Coast bottle shops ravaged

Schoolies has been supercharged by a controversial drink. James Weir hits Surfers Paradise to witness the quenching.

Gold Coast bottle shops swarmed by Schoolies are struggling to keep up with demand for one of the year’s most controversial beverages as boys trade beer for the “girly” alcopop that they claim will “f**k you up”.

“Why drink beer when you can drink lemonade?” school leaver Jack said while walking through the streets of Surfers Paradise at the weekend, clutching a yellow-and-black cardboard carton of Hard Solo.

The new alcoholic version of the iconic lemon-flavoured Solo soft drink has been at the centre of widespread backlash. Just days before 20,000 Schoolies swarmed the Glitter Strip for a week of partying, it was announced the drink would be rebranded to Hard Rated after Australia’s beverages advertising code regulator agreed with calls from politicians and health bodies that the boozy spin-off has a “strong or evident appeal to minors”.

Proving there’s no such thing as bad publicity, there is now only one hot-ticket item the school grads are racing to secure.

“If you’re sick of the taste of beer, get on the Hard Solos – ‘cause it’s like soft drink but it’s so packed with alcohol it will f**k you up,” Luke, 18, said on Saturday night.

He was standing outside a McDonald’s after smashing back the lemony beverage with his mates. Empty tin cans were crushed and scattered around them on the concrete. He said he drank a 10-pack “every Saturday night”. To further prove his passion for the beverage, he began listing the retail prices off the top of his head.

Just a little parched. Picture: Media Mode/news.com.au

The drink has been under fire since its release in July, with health bodies arguing the beverage is preying on minors who grew up loving the regular soft drink.

In response to the criticism, a spokesperson for the drink’s manufacturer Carlton & United Breweries told news.com.au Hard Solo is “only available to be purchased by adults in licensed premises”.

Ryan, a 17-year-old Schoolie, was knocking back cans of it on Saturday night. He said he’d transitioned to the alcoholic version of the iconic soft drink because it reminded him of his favourite zesty childhood refreshment.

“I was a massive Solo fan as a kid. Best soft drink, easily,” he said.

“When it hit the stores, it was the holy grail. I was sending prayers up for this shit. This is my drink.”

Less than 24 hours into the first week of Schoolies celebrations, local bottle shop workers said they were struggling to meet demand and would have to place emergency stock orders.

Nereus Fell, a senior staff member at the BWS liquor store on Cavill Ave, said the shop was selling roughly 240 four-packs every 20 minutes.

Young men at Schoolies are toting around the cartons like trophies. Picture: Media Mode/news.com.au.

One bottle shop worker said young men were stripping the drink off shelves. Picture: Media Mode/news.com.au

“A big part of (the popularity) is it just tastes like Solo,” he said. “You can’t taste a large part of the alcohol content in it. And I think guys justify drinking it because it just tastes like a soft drink.”

While sweet alcopop beverages – with their hot pink hues and pretty labels – were once seen as “girly” drinks, Mr Fell said it was mostly young men buying up the controversial new product.

“The fact it’s not brightly coloured and not pastels like a lot of the girly drinks is a contributing factor,” he said. “Women don’t seem to have that inherent shame about drinking sugary or fruity drinks.”

Advertising guru Dee Madigan, who is the owner and executive creative director of Campaign Edge, said everything about the heritage soft drink brand spoke to young men.

“If you think about Solo, it was basically VB advertising for soft drink,” she said, comparing it to the beer brand Victoria Bitter. “Hyper masculine.”

A 1995 TV commercial for the soda showed the brand’s burly “Solo Man” character wrestling a crocodile after taking a sip of the sweet stuff.

On the Gold Coast, the young men wouldn’t be wrestling crocs – just hangovers.

News.com.au spotted many graduates — some underage — walking the streets of the beach town guzzling cans of Hard Solo while proudly toting the yellow-and-black cardboard cartons under their arms like trophies.

One intoxicated young man zombie-walked while skolling the drink before smashing the aluminium can on the concrete and stomping on it.

Thirsty Camel bottle shop worker Zane Olivier said the drink was “flying off the shelves”.

“We can’t even keep up with stocking the 10-packs in the fridge,” he said. “As soon as we put three 10-packs in, they’re gone within minutes.”

At Star Liquor on Surfers Paradise Blvd, retail assistant Dylan Schutz said the store had been stockpiling the beverage in the lead-up to Schoolies but, by Sunday, was almost out of product, with only 30 10-packs left.

“I did have a huge display in the window of 10-packs, but they’re all gone now,” he said.

He said it was mostly the boys who were buying it up.

“They taste just like the Solo they’ve been brought up with.”

Many boys are opting for the sweet alcopop over beer. Picture: Media Mode/news.com.au.

Dee Madigan said the aluminium tin added to the appeal.

“The fact it’s a can – it’s actually easier to drink a can. The Cruisers are all bottles which is kind of a pain. There’s something very satisfying (about) drinking out of a can,” she said. “If they’re really drunk, they get to squash it on their forehead.”

One 17-year-old nursing a carton of the yellow-and-black tins had one word to describe his go-to drink: “Yummy.”

The intense affection young people have for the beverage plays along with the concerns held by health groups that petitioned against the boozy spin-off of a childhood classic.

“We know that it’s teenage boys who are most likely to use soft drinks, so it’s no surprise that this is the group of young people who are being targeted by Hard Solo,” said Caterina Giorgi, the CEO of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show sweetened drinks are more popular among young men, with the biggest guzzlers being 14 to 17-year-olds (68.6 per cent) followed by 18 to 24-year-olds (68 per cent).

The drink has also been getting a lot of buzz on social media platforms, which Ms Giorgi said has spiked interest among young people.

“TikTok has been flooded with user-generated content espousing how easy it is to ‘knock back’ this alcoholic product, with these videos attracting more than 10 million views on a platform largely populated by teenagers,” she said.

While a spokesperson for Carlton & United Breweries said lemon-flavoured alcopops are an “increasingly popular type of alcoholic drink” for many other manufacturers, Ms Giorgi accused the company of squeezing “every last bit of free PR” out of the saga by announcing the name change just days before Schoolies kicked off.

And it’s this swirl of scandal that could be the best marketing campaign of all.

“The thing that’s helped this the most is the controversy around it,” Ms Madigan said. (Young men think) ‘If they’re trying to ban it, then that’s what I want to drink’.”

Originally published as Boys at Schoolies guzzling vetoed Hard Solo as Gold Coast bottle shops ravaged