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What are the biggest millennial drinking trends (alcoholic beverages only)?
Hello! Thanks for your question about millennial drinking trends. The short version is that millennials want to try it all, and value quality and experience above price. Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
METHODOLOGY
After studying alcoholic beverage industry reports focusing on millennials, I moved on to surveys, market trends, and studies on the drinking habits and tastes of millennials.
OVERALL TRENDS
With the number of millennials being estimated between 68 million and 77 million, they are the most powerful consumer demographic, simply because of their sheer numbers. Millennials are concerned less with price and far more with authenticity, experiences, and quality. Having grown up with high-quality, gourmet products and extensive information more widely available than ever before, millennials are knowledgeable and demanding when it comes to their food and drink. They seek out new experiences and flavours, demand authenticity, variety, and quality, and will allow for higher quality alcohols with smaller budgets than any other generation. Over 40% of millennials equate price with quality, compared to 27% of baby boomers. However, they also tend to be more value-driven, seeking out promotional pricing, coupons, discounts, and sales.
Because of their search for quality and experiences, this group tends to search for recommendations from friends, online marketing over television marketing, and pertinent blogs. In-store tastings and food and wine festivals are also likely to influence purchase decisions. On-premise purchases are mostly driven
by menu descriptions, promotions and POS materials, samples from the server or bartender, and suggestions of their friends or the bartender/server. They are far more likely to try new drinks, with 18% of younger millennials (21-24) and 12% of older millennials (25-34) trying a new drink on their most recent drinking occasion, compared with the 8% of the general population. 55% of millennials also enjoy ready-to-drink products, from beer cocktails in a can to cocktail slushy pouches.
Their penchant for exploration has led to a dramatic increase in available flavours, with the millennial flavour portfolio ranging from sweet whipped cream vodka to spicy cinnamon whiskey, and everything in between. Offerings include sriracha vodka, honey beer, serrano pepper and cucumber alcohols, cardamom, and cherry spice. With millennials being the most ethnically and culturally diverse generation ever, as well as being more globally-aware than the previous generations that did not grow up with global media, imported and traditional drinks from other cultures have experienced a rapid growth.
Over 50% of millennials post about their alcohol choices on Facebook, and over 33% do the same on Youtube, Twitter, and Instagram.
BEER
They tend to drink beer in social settings rather than alone as a way to de-stress after work. 46% of millennials look for restaurants to offer a variety of beers, particularly craft beer. Craft beer also comprises 15% of millennials' off-premise alcoholic purchases. The explosion in craft beer and ciders is credited to millenials. Seasonal beers are a popular way to experience new flavours and regions.
WINE
29% of the U.S. wine-drinking population is comprised of millennials, and they consumed 159.6 million cases of wine in 2015, and drink an average of 3.1 glasses in one sitting. 42% of wine in the U.S. is consumed by millennials.
32% of millennials look for restaurants to offer a variety of wines, and are 60% more likely to want to explore as many wines as they can. As a group, they develop a taste for wine at an earlier age, and often seek to explore specific varietals and regions. Most often starting with sweet reds and moscatos, they will usually explore more complex and dry wines in their pursuit of new experiences and tastes. 17% of millennials paid over $20 for a bottle of wine recently, compared to 10% of the general population.
Most depend upon peer reviews, wine apps or membership-based wine clubs to help guide their wine purchases, giving them the ability to choose based on personal taste preferences rather than expert opinion. They also have a marked preference for organic wines, being 38% more likely to purchase these over non-organic. They find them to be "fresher, better for you, with higher quality and more ingredient authenticity."
SPIRITS
Millennials most often drink spirits socially, unlike preceding generations. Cocktail mixing is a favoured way to create experiences. And like other generations, millennials favour well-known labels of spirits.
50% of millennials look for restaurants to offer a variety of spirits and cocktails. Most millennials begin with dessert-flavoured vodkas and vodka-based mixed drinks, using this as a sweet starting point to exploring various liquor offerings. Vodka is their go-to spirit, but they also greatly favour rums, tequilas, and whiskeys, and appreciate a wide range of flavour profiles and ages. Whiskey is a stand-out favourite, with Fireball being featured in a great deal of shot recipes.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, new experiences and flavours combined with quality and perceived authenticity are the values most sought-after within the millennial generation. They are more likely to budget for fine alcohols with less money than other generations, and are more likely to tell their social networks about their choices.
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