NPR’s Planet Money blog had an interesting report today entitled What America Spends On Booze, breaking it down with some recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and some great infographics by Lam Thuy Vo of NPR.
As you can see, we drink outside our homes almost twice as much as we did three decades ago, though as Lam Thuy Vo notes, that’s a little deceptive at least partly because the price of alcohol in bars and restaurants has skyrocketed while real prices have fallen, when adjusted for inflation.
Also, what we spend our alcohol dollars on has likewise shifted over the last thirty years. While beer is still on top, it has slipped a little. Wine is way up, while spirits have significantly dropped.
The one thing I’m a bit surprised about is the drop in beer. Since the price of craft beer is generally higher than mainstream adjunct lagers, I would think that the higher dollar rings would cause the figures for beer to rise as the percentage of craft beer has increased. Perhaps the price wars among the big players that have kept the price of beer artificially low for so long have contributed, or at least partially account, for the extended dip.