SNAKEBITE: FROM UNI STUDENT FAVOURITE TO THE NEXT BIG DRINK OF 2027?

There are certain drinks that immediately transport you to a particular time and place.

Snakebite is one of them.

Sticky club floor. Questionable music. Probably a Wednesday night. Almost certainly a decision you’d reconsider the following morning.

But could one of Britain's most notorious student drinks be ready for a comeback?

We think it might be.

First things first: what is a Snakebite?

The classic Snakebite couldn't be much simpler:

Half lager. Half cider.

Pour them together and there you have it.

Add blackcurrant cordial and you've got the equally infamous Snakebite and Black.

For years, Snakebite has occupied a slightly strange corner of British drinking culture. Everybody seems to know what it is, plenty of people have a story involving one, but very few drinks brands actually talk about it.

Maybe it's because one of those urban myths was always "pubs are banned from serving Snakebite", with several rumours as to why, exactly. As someone who has been enjoying Snakebite, or "Snakey-B" if we're still talking like students, for many years - I can confirm this rumour as false. 

But perhaps those sorts of rumours are exactly why it's interesting again.

Everything comes back eventually

Food and drink trends have a habit of moving in circles.

Drinks that once seemed hopelessly unfashionable suddenly reappear with better ingredients, nicer glassware and a new generation of drinkers wondering what all the fuss was about.

We've watched it happen with the Espresso Martini.

The Negroni became ubiquitous.

Spritzes escaped the Italian piazza and took over British summer drinking.

Even Guinness has found a huge new audience among younger drinkers thanks to craft brewers making challenger stouts.

So why not Snakebite?

Because underneath the reputation, the basic idea actually makes quite a lot of sense.

Crisp lager. Fruity cider. Bitterness meets sweetness. Easy refreshment.

The lager brings malt, bitterness and carbonation. The cider brings fruit, acidity and sweetness. Put the right two together and neither has to overpower the other.

That's less "terrible student invention" and more "surprisingly sensible flavour combination".

The important bit is what's going into it

Maybe Snakebite never needed reinventing.

Maybe it just needed better cider and better lager.

There's a fairly substantial difference between combining two drinks because they're the cheapest things available at the student union and deliberately choosing a lager and cider that taste great together.

And that's where we think things get interesting.

Modern British cider is changing. Drinkers have more choice. Producers are playing with flavour, format and occasion. Meanwhile, beer drinkers have spent the past decade becoming much more adventurous about what goes into their glass.

Snakebite sits right in the middle of those two worlds.

We've already been doing some highly scientific research into the subject at Red Fin.

By "highly scientific", we mean pouring Red Fin into various beers and seeing what happens.

Our conclusion?

There's life in the old Snakebite yet.

So, will Snakebite be the drink of 2027?

We can't see the future.

But we're putting it out there now so we can look extremely clever if it happens.

The ingredients are certainly there: nostalgia, simplicity, a recognisable name and a new generation of better beers and ciders to experiment with.

Forget the plastic pint glass and sticky nightclub floor.

Cold lager. Proper cider. 50/50.

Maybe Snakebite deserves another go.

2027, we're looking at you.