On December 10, 2024, a seller stops a bottle of Casamigos, Tequila of Diageo, the world's leading spirits manufacturer, in a spirits business in Monterrey, Mexico.
Daniel Becerril | Reuters
In 2024, the US spirits industry maintained its market share of beer and wine for a third year in a row, even when the income was released on Tuesday.
The sales of the Spirit supplier in the United States fell by 1.1% last year to a total of 37.2 billion US Distilled spirits council, a leading trade organization.
This is the first time that the income for the category of spirits has decreased for more than two decades. Despite a return to more typical buying patterns after a pandemic boom, the spirits have increased an average of 5.1% per year since 2019. Between 2003 and 2019, the average annual growth rate was 4.4%.
“While the spirits industry has proven to be resilient in difficult times, it is certainly not immune to disruptive economic forces and market challenges, and that was definitely the case in 2024,” said Chris Swonger, President and CEO of Discus, Chris Swonger.
Tequila and Mezcal remained a ray of hope for the year as the only spiritual category that showed sales growth, since sales rose by 2.9% to $ 6.7 billion.
Top five spiritual categories after income in 2024:
- Wodka: 7.2 billion US dollars (apartment from the previous year)
- Tequila/Mezcal: 6.7 billion US dollars (by 2.9%)
- American whiskey: 5.2 billion US dollars (decline of 1.8%)
- Cordials: 2.8 billion US dollars (a decrease of 3.6%)
- Mixed cocktails including Spirits RTDS: 3.3 billion US dollars (around 16.5%)
Free -frozen cocktails with skills grew double digits. However, the category contains different types of mixed spirits, including vodka, rum, whiskey and cordials.
The Mexican tariff threat
Mexican spirits and beer have been increasingly popular with consumers for over two decades, and Tequila and MEZCAL sales exceeded the American whiskey for the first time on 2023.
The street for the products based in Mexico remains uncertain. The Trump government delayed the tariffs for imports from Mexico – including striking products such as Mezcal and Tequila – to mock a month, while the collective bargaining continues.
“These tariffs devastated our craft distillation community,” said Sonat Birnecker Hart, President and founder of Koval Distillery in Chicago. “Many craftsmen have spent great time, efforts and resources to expand into international markets just to destroy their dreams through tariffs that have absolutely nothing to do with our industry,” added Hart.
Swonger also noticed that tariffs would be a “catastrophic blow” for distillers and would only expand the pressure, have included the higher interest rates into the supply chain of the industry, since wholesalers and retailers continue to build up inventory collections and carefully set up products.
“Consumers have been fighting with some of the highest prices and interest rates for decades, which has burdened their wallets and forced many to reduce the expenses for small luxury such as distilled spirits,” said Swonger.
“Our sales fell slightly, but consumers continued to choose spirits and enjoy a cocktail with family and friends,” he said.
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