Booze brands are hopeful that help is on the way for their industry—and they need it. Tariffs and declining drinking habits have weighed heavily on beverage companies over the last two years, but a change in control of Congress may signal near-term relief.
The beverage market was apparently thirsty for good news. Stocks of some beer, wine, and liquor brands perked up after election results rolled in. Companies such as Diageo, the British beverage giant behind brands like Guinness and Smirnoff, and Brown-Forman, which makes spirits like Jack Daniel’s and Chambord, enjoyed a stock pop of more than 5% after Election Day. Anheuser-Busch; Molson Coors Beverage Co.; Boston Beer Co.; and Constellation Brands, which imports popular Mexican beer brands in the U.S., also experienced gains on Wednesday as the blue wave swept through.
Trump’s tariffs may have first turned international trade upside down last year, but their effects are still being felt. Last month, the U.S. charged ahead with a plan to ban almost $1 billion in imports from its northern neighbor, restricting the flow of Canadian dairy products, motorcycles, and alcoholic products. The ban was designed to punish Canada for pushing back with its own tariffs on American goods, but a 50% tariff already limited imports across many of those categories. Still, the full ban shows that Trump’s erratic trade wars rage on, even as American consumers shoulder much of the economic pain for those policies.
An existential threat
Alcoholic beverages make up the vast majority of the estimated $967 million in Canadian imports the ban is expected to impact, yet another symbolic blow for an industry already reeling from a perfect storm of market forces. Last year, Canadian stores yanked U.S. booze from their shelves after Trump announced a 25% tariff on almost all imports from Mexico and Canada. At the time, the Distilled Spirits Council, a beverage industry trade association, warned of “great harm” to U.S. companies and their workers in light of the tariffs, expressing further concern that Canada’s retaliation would worsen the stateside situation.
The trade wars amplify an already worrying forecast for the beverage industry, which is scrambling to adapt its business as alcohol consumption continues to plunge not only in the U.S. but also globally. In 2025, the share of American adults who said they drink alcohol dropped to 54%, according to polling from Gallup—lower by 1 percentage point than the previous record low reported in 1958 and a dramatic dip from 2022, when 67% of Americans said they were drinkers.
Drinking less, drinking differently
With drinking habits already drying up, the beverage industry is right to be worried that high costs are accelerating those trends.
In 2026, it wasn’t just expensive chocolate and unaffordable beef weighing down American shoppers. The price of beer, wine, and liquor soared too, putting a damper on drinking culture and straining sales for many booze-based businesses. In a recent survey of 1,000 Americans who drink, market research platform Zappi found that 65% of adults say they “pregame” by drinking at home before going out in order to save money on alcohol. This behavior, often thought of as a college-age ritual among cash-strapped students, is just one way consumers are grappling with the high price of drinks.
“Pre-gaming is no longer a niche or age-specific behavior—it’s a mainstream occasion that brands need to design for deliberately,” Zappi suggested in its report. “Retail brands, particularly [ready-to-drink products], spirits, and hard seltzers, should be thinking about the ‘pre-game moment’ as a distinct occasion.”
The average price of a cocktail in the U.S. is now above $13—and much more in cities like New York where prices for everything are higher and drinking rituals run deep. Ordering a martini set consumers back an average of $18.63 in the U.S. this year, up 8% from a year ago, according to recent data from food-industry market research and consulting firm Technomic. Opting for a margarita would save you more than $8 compared with a martini, but those prices also crept up by roughly 2% on average in 2026 and as much as 33% in Alaska.
The new premium on drinking is driving other market changes, too. Suntory Global Spirits CEO Greg Hughes told The Wall Street Journal that demand for its mini-bottles of liquor staples like Maker’s Mark and Jim Beam is surging as drinkers trim their alcohol budgets and order fewer drinks while going or dining out. “They’re trying to stretch the dollar by pregaming,” Hughes said. You can see that’s what’s growing.”
With Americans hurting from high costs, tariff relief is at the top of the menu for Democrats as they take control of Congress in January. “We’re paying a tremendous amount of money for this,” incoming Michigan Sen. Abdul El-Sayed said in a podcast interview last week. He described ending the trade war with Canada as something Democrats “absolutely have to do immediately”—a priority he shares with the beverage industry.
“Getting American distilled spirits back on the shelves in Canada and securing the U.S. removal of the import ban on Canadian spirits remain top priorities for our industry, especially as we head into the crucial holiday season,” Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, told Fast Company. “A return to zero-for-zero tariffs on distilled spirits is a proven policy that has fostered economic growth for the hospitality industry, and we will continue to share that message with the administration and the new Congress.”
