Zapping The Zima Rumors Clear, Sweet Drink Will Show Up On Breath Tests
Youth officials in 10 states have complained to the Coors Brewing Co. about its new colorless drink, which tastes like soda pop and has inspired rumors that it cannot be detected on police breathtesting equipment.
Coors has sent strong letters to police chiefs and school superintendents emphasizing the alcoholic content of the beverage, called Zima, and assuring them that the rumors are false.
But national experts on underage drinking say Zima’s sweet, smooth taste and lack of color make it difficult for police to identify and easy for teenagers to consume in large quantities before its alcohol content - higher than beer - takes full effect.
“It is a very misleading alcoholic beverage,” said Kae McGuire, associate director of the Trauma Foundation of San Francisco General Hospital. “It tastes like Seven-Up.”
“It doesn’t have the odor that beer has, and that is a big problem,” said Nancy G. Rea, coordinator of the Drawing the Line on Underage Alcohol Use program in Montgomery County, Maryland. “How do you know if it is alcohol?”
Some parents of inebriated youths, Carlin said, “didn’t even realize what they were drinking was alcohol.”
Each bottle of Zima is labeled “unique alcohol beverage” and carries the government health warning.
Jesse Rivkin, a 16-year-old junior at a Maryland high school, said he had sampled Zima and thought its smooth taste attracts problem drinkers. “It tastes like Sprite,” he said. “It goes down very easily and so a lot of kids tend to abuse it.”
Police said they also are concerned about problems the new beverage might pose in prosecuting those who sell or serve liquor to people under the legal drinking age of 21. Carlin said a defense attorney might ask the arresting officer if he had sufficient cause to investigate: “How did he know it was an alcoholic beverage? It didn’t look like it, it didn’t smell like it.”
Rea said Zima has an identifiable, if unusual, smell. She said officers should be able to justify such arrests once they have experience with the beverage.
Coors said in its letters that, “Zima, like any alcohol beverage, contains ethanol - the ingredient that registers in any Breathalyzer test. Zima, like other clear alcohol beverages - vodka, gin, rum - is still detectable despite its clear profile.
The letter identified Zima as “a moderate alcohol beverage with the same alcohol content as beer, at 3.7 percent by weight.”
Carlin said she appreciated the letter, but noted Zima is 4.65 percent alcohol by volume, the other way of measuring alcohol content, compared with 4.2 percent for a Coors light beer.
Rowe said the rumor that Zima would not show on a breath test “popped up in at least 10 states.” All the states affected, she said, were east of the Mississippi River.
Carlin said she suggested Coors change one of its initial ads so that two confused young men given Zima in a bar in an alternative universe are first asked to prove their age. Coors instead has continued to air a general ad warning against underage drinking.