Alcohol consumption in the US was up by 2% last year, marking its largest gain since 2002.
According to a report by IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, the dramatic uptick in off-premise sales more than off-set the on-premise closure due to the pandemic. The upward trend is on course to remain in place this year, with year-to-date volume sales in the US is still higher than 2019.
Beer was down by -2.8% in volume with domestic beer volume down by -4.4%. Imports faired better with an increase of 3.1% in volume.
Spirits in the US last year posted a gain of 4.6%, the largest volume increase for the spirits category since 1990. Wine sales grew slightly last year, up by 0.7% in volume.
No surprise, RTDs (which includes hard seltzers in this report) were the big winner overall with an increase in volume of 62.3%, led by hard seltzers which grew by a staggering 130%.
More details here.