White Claw's Comin' In Hot This Summer With A Higher Alcohol Drink

“White Claw Summer” has a whole new meaning this year

Remember the summer of 2019? There were music festivals. Trips to the beach. Hanging out with friends in crowded spaces without a care in the world. And, through it all, there was White Claw. How many of us raised a can and half-slurred, “Ain’t no laws when you’re drinking Claws” that year? (Author sheepishly raises her hand.)

Well, vaccines are becoming plentiful and we’re all facing the possibility that this summer might be, while not totally back to normal, at least normal-ish. As in, we’ll be able to go outside and hang out with our friends and drink light, fruity, boozy seltzers again! Or, if you really want to make up for lost time, White Claw has a new offering that seems to be exactly what this post-pandemic world needs: Surge, a new seltzer that comes in a bigger can and has a lot more alcohol. The new cans are 16 ounces each, instead of the standard 12, and the ABV is 8 percent, compared to 5 percent for the Claws we know and love. Ain’t no laws, etc., so forth, let’s just start pre-hydrating now, ok?

Obviously, this news has people both stoked and shook for the warm days ahead.

One very helpful Twitter user even did some math for us and found that a White Claw Surge is the equivalent of 2.1333 cans of old, uncool White Claw.

Here’s the thing: We haven’t been to a party in well over a year at this point. Our bodies are decidedly not ready. And yet, White Claw decided to unleash this on the world anyway, and maybe that’s for the best. Sitting in the sunshine and drinking 1-3 of these babies might be just what we need to shock ourselves back to pre-quarantine life, or it might end us. There’s no way to know. Like with so many activities in the pandemic age, you just gotta weigh the risks and roll the dice.

Luckily for all of humanity, White Claw won’t be selling surge in 24- or even 12-packs. You can only get the cans individually, for $2.99 a pop. Not that that’s going to stop anyone who’s determined to drink a lot of them, but there’s hope in knowing we’ll be somewhat limited by how many individual cans we can carry from the gas station back to our cars. White Claw may want to see the world burn this summer, but at least it seems to want it to burn kind of slowly.