An exterior rendering of Truly LA is shown. (Image: Truly)

Truly Hard Seltzer announced its first brick-and-mortar location Wednesday, which is scheduled to open in early 2022 in downtown Los Angeles and will be called Truly LA.

According to the release, the taproom will offer 12 taps and serve “globally-inspired” food. Aside from the 12 taps, Truly cocktails will be available. Truly LA also will sell limited merchandise and feature entertainment from musicians, comedians and artists, powered by Truly’s partnership with Live Nation.

Truly broke ground on the location at 213 Alameda Street, which will be 8,000 square feet and have a 350-person indoor/outdoor capacity, in August.

The company also suggested the taproom will include a socially conscious mission:

“Art and creativity is a theme at Truly LA, with local artist-commissioned murals adorning the exterior and a regular calendar of the space. In addition to spotlighting up-and-coming local talent, Truly will also leverage its existing partnership with Live Nation to bring visitors ongoing cultural entertainment in the form of it’s [sic] Truly Inspired concert series and comedy shows, which will be livestreamed from the taproom to drinkers around the world. The goal is to push the norm and give guests an experience unlike any other.”

With this move, Truly becomes the biggest seltzer brand to have a taproom. It makes you wonder — will there be more? If it goes well for Truly, will we see White Claw jump on the bandwagon? And what about ready-to-drink whiskey products? The idea of a taproom devoted to ready-to-drink products feels extremely counterintuitive, but that’s what Truly is doing, so maybe the trend will catch on. A brand that might see ideal capitalization of the taproom hybrid model would be Cutwater Spirits – a brand with a deep RTD canned cocktail portfolio and spirits portfolio.

Ready-to-drink cocktail-in-a-can products grew in popularity over the summer as distillers looked to compete with the seltzer products that were exploding in popularity at the time. And those ready-to-drink whiskey products aren’t going anywhere; on Sept. 23, Smokehead released two canned cocktail products using its scotch whisky, one with ginger and lime and the other with cola.

Here at Whiskey Raiders, we do more than write about current events in Whiskey. We are the only media property reviewing whiskeys and aggregating the scores and reviews of other significant voices in the whiskey world in one place. If you’re interested in getting a shot of whiskey in your morning email, sign up for our Daily Dram Gram!