Spirits sales have fallen this year as the industry faces a new normal.

Earlier this week, the beverage industry website Spirit business A new report was cited as suggesting that spirits sales in the U.S. were down about 3 percent in the year to March 2024. This is clearly bad news for the industry and the distilleries that actually make the spirits, and while the future is uncertain, it’s not the only disappointing reporting of late.

comes from the report cited The oyster source, a data crunching tool operated by the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America to capture sales data from wholesalers and liquor retailers nationwide. The figures show that sales of spirits fell by 2.7% from April 2023 to March 2024, while wine sales fell by 8.3%. And it appears that at the very end of that period, sales of spirits fell 5.2 percent from January to March, and wine fell 10.9 percent over the same period. “The wine and spirits category is currently underperforming expectations and has had a slow start to the year,” SipSource analyst Dale Stratton said in the report. “Most categories and channels will likely break out of their slump and improve their performance significantly, while others will continue to struggle throughout the year.” He cited several factors that may have contributed to the decline, including inflation and gas prices.

That’s not the only warning sign for the spirits industry, as some major beverage corporations have released reports showing their own deficiencies. Last month, Constellation Brands reported a 6 percent decline in its wine and spirits portfolio, which includes popular brands like High West, Casa Noble Tequila, and Swedka Vodka. The company’s overall revenue rose, however, thanks to an 11 percent increase in sales of its beer brands, which include Mexican beer giants Modelo and Corona.

Pernod Ricard, the company behind Jameson, Redbreast, Martel Cognac and Absolut vodka, said sales in the U.S. fell 11 percent during its third quarter. According to a recent Reuters The story, Pernod pointed out, points to retailers cutting high-end spirits from their inventories, which sold well at the height of the Covid pandemic but declined as things began to normalize. The Chinese market, traditionally important for high-end spirits, also showed a significant decline for Pernod, while sales in India rose by 8 percent. In January, Diageo shares fell in value after Reports That big brands like Casamigos Tequila fell by 14% in the US.

Campari Group, which owns Espolón Tequila, Wild Turkey, and Glen Grant, recently reported a largely flat sales landscape, with the U.S. market down .4 percent. That was certainly due to a more than 10 percent drop in sales of Wild Turkey here and in Australia — traditionally a big market for this bourbon — while the Espolone and Campari brands took a hit. Showed self-improvement. Speaking of bourbon, earlier this week Kentucky news station WDRB Reported That Heaven Hill was offering buyouts to 14 workers at its bottling plant softened the market, which did not please the UFCW Local 23D union. But Haven Hill, which is privately held, told WDRB in an email that the company is “overwhelmingly outperforming its competitors,” and plans to open a new $135 million distillery in Bardstown, KY. are underway which will double its production.

As expected, there is some conflicting information as companies try to break down their best practices. But all of this doesn’t mean the spirits industry is going away anytime soon – if anything, it may just indicate the stability of a spirits market that has seen consumers pay some of the steepest prices in recent years. are lying According to SipSource, spirits sales are likely to improve through the remainder of 2024, though they may not reach the heights of a few years ago. In other words, the new normal could be more, well, normal, which will ultimately be a net positive for people looking for a cheap bottle of whiskey.