The annual Distilled Spirits Council industry review has just been released: As it turns out, Americans like to drink. No, seriously, we really like to drink. Last year, U.S. distillers cranked out 210 million cases of liquor, up 2.2 percent from 2013. Supplier revenue is up to $23.1 billion. An indication of market recovery: Americans are not only drinking more, but they are also paying more—premium brands are outselling value brands (you know, like that $6 plastic bottle of gin you bought in college). The bourbon and Tennessee whiskey category has grown an impressive 7.4 percent. We are in the midst of a microdistillery boom. But there was one very noticeable decline—in the number of flavored vodkas.
According to DISCUS, flavored vodka and rum (the report combines both spirits, though flavored rum is a smaller segment) declined by 900,000 cases from 2013 to 2014. Not that this is bad news. After all, the world probably didn’t need vodkas flavored like rainbow sherbet, peanut butter and jelly, salmon, or Cinnabon. But as I note in my book, Vodka: How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America, the point of flavored vodkas was to attract female drinkers, a sizable segment of the market. Volume for vodka in general actually grew by 1.6 percent for a whopping 67 million cases—more cases than any other spirit in the market. This may indicate the flavor gateway has served its purpose and now both men and women are drinking the same type of vodka—nonflavored and increasingly expensive.
Not that it’s all good news: Although the market for flavored vodka is in decline, another is on the rise. As DISCUS chief economist and senior vice president David Ozgo noted in a teleconference earlier today, “a lot of that volume [for flavored vodka] shifted to whiskey.” Indeed, the volume of flavored whiskey has now grown to 2.8 million cases with no end in sight. Have you not heard of flavored whiskeys? There’s Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey, Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, and Red Stag by Jim Beam (cherry-infused bourbon), to name three.
When I visited Jim Beam’s headquarter in Deerfield, Ill., Beam executive John Horn told me that 40 percent of Red Stag drinkers are women. They hope to bring in more and perhaps ease them into drinking brown spirits in general (getting women to drink more bourbon and whiskey has always been the white whale of the industry). Forty percent is a good start. But that 60 percent of men who drink cherry-flavored bourbon? That itself may be a setback. For man.
