Sunday

Restaurant Spending On Alcohol Increased Due To Prices

By Cornelius Nunev


Dining places and bars charge a markup on alcoholic beverages, but people have been spending more to them there than in stores. However, it has every little thing to do with higher prices, instead of consumption.

Prices slowly increasing

According to a recent post on NPR, part of its "What America Spends On" series, Americans are steadily growing the amount spent on alcoholic beverages in restaurants and bars. The series compares figures from 1982 to today, examining the changes in the 30-year period.

In 1982, the Cold War still existed, spandex was in vogue and yuppies were driving BMWs. Americans were also conscious of the mark up on beer, wine and spirits in restaurants and bars, as only 24 percent of alcohol spending was in those places and 76 percent was spent in stores.

The price of diner and bar alcohol has increased 79 percent during that time while store prices have dropped 39 percent. This is essential because it shows why there was a shift in people spending more in dining places and bars now. Currently, only 60 percent is spent in shops with 40 percent spent in bars and dining places.

Different spending habits

The biggest change was what the country indulges in. In 1982, 48.9 percent of spending was on beer, followed by spirits at 34.6 percent and wine at 16.2 percent. However, spirits have fallen to 12.6 percent of spending and wine has ballooned to 39.7 percent of spending on libations for 2012.

The wine industry in America is in the midst of a gilded age. In 2011, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, there were 329.7 million cases of wine shipped around the country, which marked a milestone as the United States, for the first time, eclipsed France as the chief wine-drinking country, as that country went through 320.6 million cases.

In 2010, the American wine industry was a $30 billion industry. In that year, 241.8 million cases were sent from a ton of different wineries. Millennials are willing to spend more on costly bottles and are drinking more. California by itself produced 61 percent of that wine, which means California is the state where the majority of the wine comes from.

Fit for a king

However, the favored drink of the nation is still beer. In 2012, according to NPR, beer still made up 47.7 percent of sales, barely changing from 1982. Overall beer production, according to BusinessInsider, has fallen from just under 204 million gallons in 1990 to just under 192 million in 2011, though that's part of an overall trend of Americans consuming less as a whole.

Craft breweries are beginning to become much more well-liked as well. In fact, there were 1,989 craft breweries in 2011 with 37 closing and 250 new ones opening. Almost 5.7 percent of the industry share and $8.7 billion in revenue was given to the craft breweries. They produced about 11.5 million barrels of beer. There was an 11 percent growth in craft breweries from 2010 to 2011 also.



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