Samuel AndersonManaging Partner, BevAssets, LLC · Just Pick Up The Phone 📞 | Joy 🦋 | Empowering individuals through meaningful connections, one person at a time.

Alcohol is not dead. #winning #beverages #spirits #wine #beer #hemp

3 Jan 2026 · 2 min

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1:39

In a brief industry discussion, two speakers counter the narrative that alcoholic beverages are in decline. Speaker A emphasizes that alcohol still accounts for over 95% of adult drinking volume and remains the core profit driver, while acknowledging the fast‑growing non‑alcoholic (NA) segment, projected to become a $1 billion market by 2025 and exceed $5 billion within five years. He urges retailers and menu planners to retain wine, beer, and spirits but also to incorporate emerging NA brands (e.g., Melton Forest) to capture new occasions and avoid losing sales. Speaker B reinforces the point, stating that alcohol helped build the country and will never disappear, noting that modest fluctuations in NA sales are beneficial and reflect improving lifestyles. Both reference their “Daily Brief” insights and conclude that a balanced portfolio of alcoholic and non‑alcoholic offerings is the winning strategy for the coming year.

Chapters

I would love just to give people 3 minutes of things to think about. And the big things that are happening in industry, every time you open up a fricking article, it talks about Armageddon on the bev/alch side of the business. And it absolutely is not factual. But you'll read all these rags about how alcohol is dying and slowing. It's still over 95% of the adult drinking business. All the NAs, and I'm a big supporter of NAs because they're growing, they're going to be— it's a billion-dollar category in 25, by the way, and it'll be like, you know, be over $5 billion in the next 5 years. So very important category. But please don't like get rid of your wine, beer, and spirits. They still drive your bottom line. But please bring in Melton Forest and these other brands as part of your offering, because if you don't, you're going to lose that occasion. You're going to lose that trip. The people that are going to win— and this is what I talk about on the Daily Brief. The people that are going to win are the people that actually build their menus, build their retail accounts with an offering that meets the consumer needs and where they're going.
Alcohol is what built the country. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Arizona Red Bull. They will never go away. But alcohol. No, it'll never go away. There might be little fluctuations on non-alc, and that's good. Lifestyle's improving. And yeah. So that was a very good summary of the approach for next year. I love the daily brief that you