Passin’ on pints… Dry January ends at midnight, and February’s hoped-for deluge can’t come soon enough for corporate booze slingers like Bud maker ABInBev and Constellation Brands. A recent poll found that 21% of drinking-age US adults said they’d planned to cut back on drinking this January, up 6% on the year. US beer shipments hit a 24-year low last year, and over in the pub-stuffed UK, this January is said to have been the driest in memory. Booze consumption is down across the EU too.
High ’n’ dry: One study found that 70% of Dry January participants were drinking in a healthier way six months later.
The young adults are alright: More than half of surveyed 18- to 26-year-olds in the US said they hadn’t drunk at all in the past six months.
MokTok: On TikTok, #sobercurious has 847M views as folks share mocktail recipes and talk about the hangover-free lifestyle.
Throwin’ back Shirley Temples… Sales of nonalcoholic spirits have started to flow. Picture: Diageo’s alcohol-free Gordon’s gin or its Captain Morgan Spiced Gold 0.0% (FYI: the biz just reported that it upped its marketing spend for Tanqueray 0.0%). With $1B in annual sales, nonalcoholic spirits are a drop in the $650B/year spirits market, but they’re expected to grow 30% yearly versus alcohol’s 6%. Zooming out, the non-boozy drinks industry (including NA beers and wine) did nearly $18B in sales in 2022.
Booze giants can have their cake and drink it too… Major brands have embraced no- and low-alcohol options, which can cost more than their boozy counterparts. Heineken 0.0 is dominating the low-ABV-beer space, and the new White Claw 0% aims to ride that wave. But it doesn’t mean the industry is giving up booze. Despite the growth in alcohol alts, in recent years Americans who do drink have been drinking more.