The Wine Fairy

Welcome to another edition of What Is This Thing?, in which your intrepid wine blogger reviews wine-adjacent, wine-ish, and not-quite-wine products.

Fact: Despite their liquor-shooter appearance and sexually suggestive names, Buzzballz Chillers are technically wine. “Orange Wine With Cream & Natural Flavors,” to be precise.

It’s all part of Buzzballz’s unique genius, and one of the keys to their market penetration (heh heh, penetration). The wine-based flavors of Buzzballz can be sold in beer and wine shops, convenience stores, and other places that aren’t allowed to sell hard liquor. At 15% ABV they’re higher in alcohol than most anything else at the 7-Eleven–unless your 7-Eleven happens to deal in Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Priorat.

Here, Buzzballz are something of a local legend. A hometown hero. Like the frozen margarita way back in 1971, the Buzzball was invented in the Dallas area and the liquor industry has never been the same since. The ready-to-drink cocktail category is consistently outperforming beer and wine among young drinkers and Buzzballz are a major part of that equation.

The 165,000 square-foot Buzzballz manufacturing plant is in Carrollton, Texas–just about 10 miles away from where I live. On my commute up the Dallas North Tollway I regularly see their billboards, emblazoned with slogans like “Ballz Well Hung” and “Taste Our Ballz.”

What began as the brainchild of a Plano West teacher with a snowglobe and a dream is now a beverage behemoth with $400 million in trackable sales since 2018. It sold to Sazerac in May 2024 for an undisclosed amount.

My Buzzballz Story

I only have one Buzzballz-related personal story, and it’s relatively tame and law-abiding. About 5-6 years ago we bought a bunch of Buzzballz for a camping trip. After the contents were consumed, we strung them up on Christmas light strands and decorated a trailer with them–the empty plastic bulbs becoming makeshift lanterns for our redneck string lights set.

I know our group tried all the available flavors that night. I don’t actually remember what any of them tasted like. I vaguely recall that the chocolate and piña colada flavors were the ones we all thought were the least bad, so those are the ones I obtained this December for my dumb blog stunt.

Buzzballz are sold everywhere in DFW. I mean absolutely everywhere that has any kind of retail booze sales at all. They sell for 3 or 4 dollars each. In a state where liquor stores are closed on Sundays and zoned out of many communities, you can get Buzzballz at gas stations. At Kroger. At H-E-B. Almost everywhere you shop, it seems, they’re lined up on a checkout or endcap, or piled into wire dump bins like tennis balls.

Buzzballz are so ubiquitous that I didn’t even have to go seeking them out for this story–I simply resolved to buy some the next time I saw them. That turned out to be the very next day at the corner store next to the UPS. As I dropped off my mail, their colorful orbs beckoned cheerily from the sidewalk-facing window.

I must’ve looked a little sheepish, because the clerk looked me up and down, then somewhat sternly asked for my ID. That’s right–this 38-year-old lady got carded buying Buzzballz at the beer store. That should tell you something about who’s into Buzzballz: Underage kids, and also grown-ups who maybe ought to know better. After all, they were invented by a high school teacher with the help of her young sons. Buzzballz weren’t around yet when I was a teenage delinquent–but if they had been, my friends and I would’ve certainly delighted in their silly shape and horny names.

Tasting Buzzballz Choco Chiller

Anyway, this is a wine tasting blog, so let’s taste.

After a gently shaking (per the package instructions) Choco Chiller pours opaque with a few bubbles and the consistency of whole milk. The aroma is not quite chocolaty. More like Tootsie Roll with a vanilla-y, marshmallow-like note and malted milk. (It blew my mind when I learned that Tootsie Rolls are not technically chocolate–due to the absence of cocoa butter–but it also explained a lot about the flavor. So yeah, Buzzballz “Choco” flavor is like that.)

Gamely, I took a sip. Good god, that’s sweet! Yep. It’s just like sipping a liquid Tootsie Roll or cereal milk from Cocoa Pebbles–or as they say in wine, “the palate confirms the nose.” Powdered sugar finish. There’s a noticeable drying effect in the mouth from the high alcohol, but it’s not hot. The body is nice (heh heh, nice body)–not too thick and not too thin–like a well-made chocolate martini. Still, I ended up pouring it over crushed ice to break up the cloying sweetness. I did not have the fortitude to try the Lotta Colada flavor and gave it away to a friend.

To Buzzballz’s credit, the aroma and flavor of the product was consistent throughout the tasting experience. It’s missing that grain-alcohol or nasty malt-beverage note that you might expect from a processed pre-mixed cocktail. It doesn’t have off flavors or a bad aftertaste. The label text “orange wine” conjured up visions of prison-made pruno from MSNBC’s “Lockup”–but there’s no detectable fruit or yeast flavors interfering with the taste of my grownup chocolate milk.

Evidently, I’m not the only one who’s chill with the Choco. When Spoon University taste-tested all the Buzzballz flavors in 2016, the chocolate one came out at the very top. (To be more precise, they rated Choco Chiller’s liquor-store analogue “Choc Tease,” which contains both orange wine and vodka.)

Can Buzzballz connoisseurs still concur that chocolate reigns supreme? As of 2024, there’s reportedly more than 70 Buzzballz flavors across all their product lines. Surely, neither myself nor the thirstiest YouTuber is ever going to get around to tasting them all.

But Is It Amazeballz?

To be honest, I wanted to hate this wine-based cocktail grenade more. Apart from the shocking sweetness (a given for this type of product), the worst thing you can say about it is that it’s a one-note flavor.

A blank tasting notepad is a startling thing to behold, but mine really just says: “Tootsie Roll.” It makes me appreciate the study of good wine even more. After all, that’s one of the reasons that we enjoy quality wine so much–because of the way that it evolves and unfolds in the glass. Buzzballz don’t unfold–they let it all hang out. (I don’t give numerical scores for “What Is This Thing?” wines–it’s all about the novelty.)

It’s my combination of Dallas pride and love of whimsy, perhaps–but I sort of found myself rooting for Buzzballz! Buzzballz have been around since 2010. In that time, they’ve faced a lot of opposition surrounding their high-alcohol content and youth-attracting colors and shape. Among environmentally conscious drinkers, Buzzballz have inspired a different sort of moral panic over the plastic trash they create.

To their credit, Buzzballz has launched a free recycling program through TerraCycle to accept the plastic containers back. They now offer the 1.75-liter Buzzballz Biggies, so you can pour Buzzballz directly into your own re-usable ball-shaped vessel (vesticle?). The founder/CEO also recently donated $30 million to Texas Woman’s University’s business school. It’s a record-breaking gift that will doubtless have a huge impact on aspiring entrepreneurs in the North Texas community.

Buzzballz were a fad that probably should have come and gone years ago, but their popularity has endured. From the college-age millennials who first slurped on the Ballz, to the Gen-Z influencers who are currently playing with their Ballz on TikTok, this is one beverage trend that’s just….nuts.

See more What Is This Thing? taste tests on The Wine Fairy blog.

Further Reading:

Good Beer Hunting: How BuzzBallz Won the Hearts, Minds, and Wallets of Americans, $3.50 at a Time

Forbes: How A High School Teacher Turned BuzzBallz, A Single-Serve Cocktail, Into A $20 Million Business

Spoon University: The Unofficially Official Ranking of Buzzballz Flavors

Sporked: What are Tootsie Rolls made of?

The Drinks Business: Sazerac Completes Buzzballz Acquisition

Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.