Bass plans Hooch World Cup launch

Bass is attempting to inject fresh enthusiasm into its alcopops brand Hooper’s Hooch with the launch of a limited summer edition in time for the World Cup.

The new drink, called Hoo La La, will be lemon, lime, orange and peach fruit flavour and will have an alcohol by volume strength of five per cent.

It will have red, white and blue coloured packaging – the same colours as the French flag – to tie in with next month’s World Cup.

A Bass spokesman says: “We are playing on the fact that all eyes will be on France this summer.”

He says Hooper’s Hooch is selling more than 2 million bottles every week, and that the brand has 43 per cent of the flavoured alcoholic beverages market.

Hooper’s Hooch is one of the few alcopops brands to have withstood the dramatic decline in the size of the sector, which has been hit by the rise of premium packaged spirits.

Figures from AC Nielsen for last July and August showed that sales of alcopops plunged by more than a third, compared with the same period last year.