Bars were closed and imports were shut down because of Trump’s trade war. But sales were up.
The monthly consumer spending data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis makes a little clearer how exactly this came about. Restaurant and bar closures did bring alcoholic beverage sales down in the spring, but in summer a new normal was established in which a partial recovery of beverage sales at bars and restaurants (helped in part by states changing liquor laws to allow them to sell drinks to go) combined with sustained higher retail sales to drive overall sales higher — although the lack of holiday parties and resurgence of the pandemic did tamp things down a bit again in December…
[O]verall U.S. sales were up 4.1% at Brown-Forman for the four quarters ending this Jan. 31, despite its divestment last summer of several lower-end whiskey brands. For the U.S. liquor industry as a whole, supplier revenues were up 7.7% in 2020, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., the biggest percentage increase in 18 years and the biggest dollar increase on record. The pandemic apparently drove a lot of people to drink the hard stuff.
There was also a shift in which kinds of drinks were selling. Liquor sales rose faster than those of beer and wine, while within the spirits category tequila and brandy saw bigger gains than whiskey and vodka. The volume of cordials (liqueurs, amari and such) actually went down as bars bought fewer to mix into cocktails, although revenue still went up as retail customers opted for higher-end products than bars tend to do. The fastest-growing category of all was pre-mixed cocktails. At Brown-Forman, U.S. sales of Jack Daniel’s Country Cocktails (Black Jack Cola, Lynchburg Lemonade, Downhome Punch, etc.) more than doubled over the past year.
I know I’ve been dipping into the hard stuff a lot more this last year. What else could we do? It was a nightmare.