BuzzBallz X Drunken Cake Pops

Company: BuzzBallz, LLC / Southern Champion

Introduced: November 2020

Distribution: National

Suggested Retail Price: $30.00 (6-pack)

Product Snapshot: Just in time for the holidays, BuzzBallz, a woman-owned, premium, premixed cocktail company, has collaborated with Drunken Cake Pops, a boutique, woman-owned bakery, to create the perfect boozy stocking stuffers. The BuzzBallz X Drunken Cake Pops Six Pack includes six cake pops expertly infused with various flavors of BuzzBallz cocktails. Each pack includes two of each of the following cake pops: Buzzin' Piña Colada, a coconut cake infused with BuzzBallz Lotta Colada and coconut rum; Tequila 'Rita, a tart lime cake infused with BuzzBallz Tequila 'Rita and more tequila; and Dirty Horchata, a chocolate cinnamon cake infused with both BuzzBallz Choc Tease and BuzzBallz Horchata, plus more vodka.

"We were in love with this collaboration and the concept of cake pops infused with our BuzzBallz Cocktails because it illustrates the versatility of our product," said Tia Wines, director of brand marketing at BuzzBallz. "Yes, you can shake our cocktails and drink them right out of the can, but you can also get creative with them; make new holiday cocktail recipes; make desserts; make a glaze. The possibilities are endless."

This collaboration was months in the making, including a few rounds of taste testing the recipes that Co-owners Sara Aleman and Zoila Navales created. There was also a bit of trial and error.

"Some of the challenges we found were trying to be creative and not just obvious," Navales said. "For example, the Dirty Horchata is made of the Choc Tease and the Horchata. It would have been easy to just make a Horchata cake pop or a Chocolate Martini, but we loved the flavors from both and thought it would be fun and unexpected to make a Dirty Horchata because cinnamon goes so well with chocolate."

Navales and Aleman were able to decide on the flavors used to create the cake pops by picking the top five flavors their staff members enjoyed and narrowing them down to three.

"When we drank the cocktails, we tried to pick out notes that we thought would … make people smile, nod their heads and say, 'OMG, this tastes just like the drink," Aleman said.

As the first collaboration of this kind for BuzzBallz, the team is excited about the outcome and have enjoyed the journey with the Drunken Cake Pops team.

"As a woman-owned business, it just felt right for our first collaboration of this kind to be with another woman-owned business," Wines said. "They knocked it out of the park with these six packs, 100 percent."

All of the BuzzBallz X Drunken Cake Pop flavors will only be sold for a limited time. These exclusive six packs are available online for shipping in the U.S. or in person at the Drunken Cake Pop bakery in Rancho Cucamonga through the beginning of January.