Sebastian Ingrosso’s frozen N’ice Cocktail in Trouble

Earlier this year Sebastian Ingrosso (together with partners Alesso and Axwell) launched a new project in form of frozen ice cream cocktails, which was named – N’ice. The N’ice ice cream cocktail comes in several different flavors, such as Pïna Colada, Mojito, Margarita, and Strawberry Daiquiri, and has an alcohol percentage of 5%. In April N’ice was first released in Sweden, and has ever since become quite popular around the nightclubs mainly in Stockholm. The cocktail was developed by award winning bartender Jimmy Dymott, and is sold by N1CE Company which was founded by Ingrosso.

Today Swedish media ‘Göteborgs-Posten’ reported that the frozen cocktails can now be ordered 100% legally straight to your door with Sweden’s largest digital grocery store ’Mathem’. In Sweden however, it is illegal to sell alcohol higher than 3.5% in a regular store, but it would appear the Swedish DJs have found a way to continue selling their product…

The reason that N’ice has been allowed to sell, lies in a loophole in Swedish Law. N’ice has been considered not to be a drink, but something you eat, and that is why the law does not apply to the frozen cocktails.

Josefin Jonsson head of the alcohol & tobacco-oversight unit at The Public Health Agency of Sweden has mentioned the following to GP: “It’s not a drink, but something you eat frozen. By Definition it’s something else.”

She continues in another statement ”Alcohol has never been sold in this form in Sweden before. That results in the alcohol law not applying to this, as it’s not adjusted after this product’s characteristics.”

So it would seem the DJ superstars have managed to find a loophole in the system, which would need to go through a decision in parliament to be adjusted and fixed.

The N1ce Company, have mentioned the frozen cocktail is not meant to intoxicate the user like alcoholic beverages, and instead mean it’s only to be seen as a treat.

“It is a treat, not a drink. It’s not something that you would use to intoxicate yourself with, and if you eat one of our ice creams you will get as much alcohol as 1/3 of a “strong-beer”(over 3.5%). We add the alcohol for the flavor, so that it will taste like a normal drink, like Mojito.” Says Mikael Drené, co-founder of N1ce company.

The cocktails sold out on Mathem within two days of the release on the store. However after GP reported about the story, Mathem quickly but temporarily ceased all sales of the product to gather feedback from customers, and would from there make a new decision on whether to start selling the product again. The N1ce Company have suggested an age restriction of 18 when buying the ice cream to Mathem and other companies, but is in no way a legal requirement.

As the story is currently being discussed between companies and government, we will update this story as soon as more information becomes available.

SOURCE (Göteborgs-Posten)