We're way past hard seltzer: The spiked drinks keep coming

Recently I was carded for trying to buy a lemonade. I thought the cashier was joking. Then she pointed to the label reading "spiked." I laughed and opted for a regular lemonade instead, since it was 2 p.m. on a Wednesday.

It's an easy mistake to make these days when just about every non-alcoholic drink has an alcohol-infused, or spiked, twin. Coconut water, cold brew, Mountain Dew, Fresca, AriZona Iced Tea and even SunnyD are just a sample of the spiked beverages being sold across the country.

To me, it seems like the market peaked. How many more drinks are left that haven't already hopped on the spiked booze train? Apparently, a lot.

"We're not near a peak on this. We're really at the very beginning," said Duane Stanford, editor of Beverage Digest, an industry trade publication.

Spiked beverages have been around for a while. But until recently if you wanted, for instance, a vodka and cranberry you'd have to purchase a bottle of vodka and some cranberry juice separately to mix it yourself.

Brands recognized that this was happening with their non-alcoholic beverages all the time, said Stanford.

"Consumers are already using the non-alcoholic Simply brand as part of their mixology regimen," Jamie Wideman, vice president of innovation at Molson Coors, told CNN ahead of the company's Simply Spiked Lemonade launch last year. "So, bringing that into the ready-to-drink space was a no-brainer," she added.