How Tequila and Whiskey Rewrote the Rules of the American Spirits Market

For most of the past three decades, if you asked an American what they preferred to drink, the answer was beer. Wine was closing the gap. Spirits were a distant third.

That picture changed in 2022, and the shift is more significant than most people in the industry have stopped to appreciate.

For the first time since Gallup began tracking beverage preferences in 1993, hard liquor surpassed wine as the second most popular alcoholic drink among American adults. Thirty-one percent of drinkers now say spirits are their beverage of choice, the highest number ever recorded. Wine sits at twenty-nine percent. Beer still leads at thirty-seven, but its dominance has been eroding steadily since the late 1990s, when nearly half of American drinkers called it their first choice.

The category responsible for most of that shift is not vodka. For the better part of thirty years, vodka was the engine of the American spirits market, accessible, mixable, and broadly appealing across demographics. What is happening now is something different. Tequila and whiskey are driving the growth, and they are doing it at price points that would have seemed far-fetched a decade ago.

What Changed and Why It Matters

The story of how tequila went from a shot taken reluctantly at a college party to the centerpiece of the fastest-growing spirits category in the country is one of the more remarkable brand-building narratives in recent memory. Celebrity investment played a role. So did the margarita's enduring hold on American cocktail culture. It has been the country's best-selling cocktail every year since at least 2015. But the deeper driver is premiumization.

Consumers who a generation ago would have bought a $15 bottle of vodka are now spending $40 on a reposado. They are doing it because tequila gave them a reason to, through credible storytelling about terroir, production methods, the agave plant itself, and the regions of Mexico where the best liquid originates. The category built a value narrative that justified the price.

American whiskey did something similar, though through a different mechanism. The bourbon boom that took shape in the early 2010s created a culture of genuine enthusiasm, limited releases, secondary market prices, distillery tourism, and tight-knit enthusiast communities that elevated the entire category's perceived value. What began as a regional American tradition became a global phenomenon. Japanese, Indian, and Taiwanese whisky followed the same template.

The result is a spirits market that is broader, more premium, and more engaged than it has been at any point in modern history.

What This Tells Us About Building a Brand

I have spent the better part of four decades working with beverage brands at every stage of development, and the pattern I see in both tequila and whiskey's rise is consistent with what separates lasting brands from ones that do not survive their first distribution agreement.

The brands that defined the tequila premiumization wave earned credibility before they chased volume. The brands that got there first, and stayed, built a story and a drinker base before they went wide. They were patient about distribution in a way that most founders find uncomfortable. That patience created scarcity, which created desire, which made distribution a reward rather than a gamble.

They also found a consumer and went deep before they went broad. Whiskey did not win by appealing to everyone. It won by creating genuine enthusiasts. People who sought out allocated releases, visited distilleries, joined clubs, and brought their networks with them. A thousand true believers are worth more in the early stages of a brand than a hundred thousand casual purchasers.

And they let the liquid do the talking. This sounds obvious, but it is more rare than you would think. Both categories benefited from genuinely excellent product at accessible price points. The consumer could taste the difference between a $15 bourbon and a $45 bourbon. That tangible quality gap made the premium story believable.

Where the Opportunity Lives Now

The question I hear most often from founders right now is some version of: is it too late to enter tequila or whiskey? The honest answer is that it is more competitive than it was five years ago, but the market is also meaningfully larger, and there are positioning angles that remain wide open.

In tequila, the craft and terroir story is still underdeveloped at accessible price points. The $25 to $40 tier is where most volume lives, and there is real room for brands that can tell an authentic production story without requiring the consumer to spend $60 to access it.

In American whiskey, the opportunity is increasingly in differentiation by approach. Single malt, grain-forward expressions, regional identity, and transparency about sourcing are all underserved. The consumer has become sophisticated enough to care about these distinctions, and the category has not fully caught up.

In both categories, the on-premise channel remains the most powerful brand-building vehicle available. The brands that built lasting equity in tequila and whiskey did it one back bar and one cocktail menu at a time, long before they showed up in the grocery aisle.

The Bigger Picture

The shift in American spirits preference is not a passing trend. It reflects something durable. Consumers have become more curious, more discerning, and more willing to pay for quality when the story is told well. Vodka's long dominance was built on accessibility and neutrality. Tequila and whiskey are winning on character.

For anyone building a brand in the spirits space right now, that is the most important market signal in years. The consumer is ready to be interested. The question is whether your brand gives them a reason to be.

That is the work we have been doing with founders at Liquid Opportunities since 2015, helping brands earn that interest before they spend on trying to buy it.

Jason Kane is Managing Partner of Liquid Opportunities, Inc., a beverage and CPG brand launch consultancy. Over a 40-plus year career he has launched more than 50 brands, completed nine personal exits, and advised founders, investors, and operators across every tier of the industry.

Founded in 2015, Liquid Opportunities partners with beverage and CPG founders at every stage of the brand lifecycle, from concept through distribution and scale. Learn about our services.