The rapid growth of the ready to drink mar­ket is be­ing seen as a lane of op­por­tu­ni­ty for An­gos­tu­ra in both the lo­cal and re­gion­al mar­ket.

Chair­man Ian Forbes said this was the ra­tio­nale be­hind the in­tro­duc­tion of An­gos­tu­ra® Cu­ba­ta a Spiced Rum and Co­la bev­er­age.

"The mar­ket trends that went in­to con­sid­er­ing the de­vel­op­ment of this prod­uct would have been the fact that you're ready to drink al­co­hol cat­e­go­ry con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence ac­cel­er­at­ed growth, dri­ven by con­ve­nience, ex­per­i­men­ta­tion and lifestyle dri­ven con­sump­tion. With­in what we con­sid­er to be an ex­pand­ing space in the drinks in­dus­try, rum based RTDs or ready to drink emerg­ing as a high po­ten­tial along with tra­di­tion­al spir­it crafts­man­ship, with ca­su­al un­der­go con­sump­tion habits of younger con­sumers," Forbes said at a press con­fer­ence to un­veil the Cu­ba­ta at the House of An­gos­tu­ra on Tues­day.

The Cu­ba­ta is the third RTD An­gos­tu­ra has brought to the mar­ket since last April. Forbes said while the brand had sig­nif­i­cant com­pe­ti­tion in that cat­e­go­ry, he felt the com­pa­ny would find good re­turns.

He said, "We think that in spite of be­ing crowd­ed, it is op­por­tu­ni­ty rich. So we are ex­ist­ing a com­pet­i­tive land­scape where con­sumer pref­er­ences are shift­ing to­wards fla­vor­ful, pre­mi­um, brand­ed, au­then­tic op­tions, and that is the con­text of this par­tic­u­lar prod­uct."

He al­so ex­plained that Cu­ba­ta al­so served as ex­ten­sion of one the com­pa­ny's pre­mi­um brands An­gos­tu­ra® Tam­boo Spiced Rum.

In a re­lease, Chair­man of An­gos­tu­ra Gary Hunt said, “In­no­va­tion has al­ways been at the heart of the House of An­gos­tu­ra. It’s not just about cre­at­ing new prod­ucts; it’s about un­der­stand­ing how peo­ple live, cel­e­brate, and con­nect and re­spond in ways that are au­then­tic and ex­cit­ing. We cre­at­ed An­gos­tu­ra® Cu­ba­ta be­cause the way peo­ple en­joy their drinks has evolved. To­day’s con­sumers want great taste, con­ve­nience, and a brand that re­flects who they are.”

The prod­uct is to be rolled out to re­gion­al ex­port mar­kets in the com­ing months.