--- title: "Luckin Coffee Sells Alcohol: The Challenge Lies in Turning Novelty into Habit" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/286790508.md" description: "Fine wine and coffee, cup after cup" datetime: "2026-05-18T14:57:32.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/286790508.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286790508.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/286790508.md) --- # Luckin Coffee Sells Alcohol: The Challenge Lies in Turning Novelty into Habit Luckin Coffee has begun experimenting with adding "alcohol" to its national menu. On May 18, Luckin Coffee launched two annual specialty drinks nationwide, with alcoholic versions available at select stores. Previously, Luckin’s alcoholic specialty drinks were sold only in a few locations, such as the Shenzhen Twin Towers and Shanghai. This marks the first time the company has expanded testing to a national scale. As the alcohol content of these products exceeds 0.5% vol, they are regulated as alcoholic beverages. Consequently, Luckin’s alcoholic drinks are available exclusively for in-store pickup, with sales to minors strictly prohibited. For Luckin, alcoholic specialty drinks are new products that naturally generate buzz. Amid ongoing price wars in the coffee sector and increasing store density, Luckin needs to continuously create new reasons for consumers to purchase. Alcoholic specialty drinks not only stimulate users’ curiosity to try something new but also leverage the concept of "tipsiness" to drive social media sharing, offering a new way to promote brand launches. At the same time, new products provide more room for flavor expansion. Combining coffee, fruit flavors, tea bases, cream tops, and alcoholic elements like gin allows beverages to extend beyond functional caffeine boosts into scenarios involving light drinking, tipsiness, and emotional consumption. For highly standardized chain coffee brands, the significance of such products lies not just in selling another new item, but in testing the boundaries of consumption beyond coffee. Furthermore, since alcoholic products are available only for in-store pickup, they objectively avoid commissions and delivery costs associated with food delivery platforms. In the first quarter of 2026, Luckin’s delivery expenses still accounted for approximately 11% of revenue. In a context where coffee delivery is highly prevalent, delivery costs remain a significant variable affecting the profit structure per cup. The "no delivery" sales model for alcoholic products, while sacrificing some convenience, offers inherent advantages in the profit model. This gives Luckin’s alcoholic specialty drinks another layer of meaning: it is not just a new product marketing campaign, but also a test of store efficiency. If customers are willing to pick up alcoholic specialty drinks in store, Luckin has the opportunity to increase store foot traffic and optimize order structures without incurring additional delivery costs. For a coffee chain with a sufficiently large store network, bringing customers back to physical stores is itself a further exploration of operational efficiency. However, tipsy beverages are not a entirely new proposition. Ready-to-drink beverage brands have been exploring this segment for some time. ChaPanda previously collaborated with Luzhou Laojiao to create a baijiu milk tea called "Drunken Steps"; Grandpa’s Tea once launched a limited-edition lychee ice brew with added rice wine; and Heytea also tested whiskey-based specialty drinks at its LAB stores in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. But regardless of how high short-term traffic was, almost none of these products truly transitioned from "limited edition" to "regular offerings." The reason is not hard to understand. The core advantages of coffee and tea drinks lie in their high frequency, convenience, and low burden, while the addition of alcohol restricts consumption based on time, occasion, and demographic. For chain beverage brands, mixing an alcoholic drink is not difficult. Adding gin to a specialty drink does not require new equipment; staff simply follow procedures, with preparation taking about 3 to 5 minutes, keeping the process within controllable limits. The challenge lies in whether consumers will form stable repeat purchases after the initial trial. Especially given Luckin’s strong capability for new product launches and established price perception, alcoholic specialty drinks must prove they are not just a social media topic, but products capable of consistently contributing real orders and profits. In a stage where it is increasingly difficult for the coffee industry to differentiate itself through a single hit product, what Luckin really needs to verify by selling alcohol is not whether alcohol can be sold, but whether new products can continue to create new reasons for consumption. ### Related Stocks - [LKNCY.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/LKNCY.US.md) - [PBJ.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/PBJ.US.md) - [FTXG.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/FTXG.US.md) - [02555.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/02555.HK.md) - [000568.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/000568.CN.md) ## Related News & Research - [Luckin Coffee Rolls Out Alcoholic Drinks in China to Tap New Growth Drivers](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286772018.md) - [Look Out Below! 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