No one knows what we’ll be drinking in 2024, but it’s still fun to peek around the corner to see what drink trends our wine and spirits experts anticipate in the year ahead. Read our sipping soothsayers’ drink trend predictions for 2024.
No one knows for sure what drink trends we’ll be enjoying in 2024 (because honestly, who had negroni sbagliatos and cotton candy margaritas on their 2023 bingo card?) but our wine and spirits experts have just enough intel to make some educated guesses.
Keep reading for the top eight beverage trends our sipping soothsayers expect to see in the year ahead OR watch us try out 2024 drink trends predicted by AI below.
You heard it here first: wine snobbery is out. Passionate, educated consumption is in.
Our experts say that drinkers, especially younger ones, care about collecting as much information about a product as possible so they can put their dollars exactly where their values and tastes lie. Millennial and Gen Z consumers care deeply about wellness and the environment (more on those later) and spend their money accordingly. They want to know about the winery’s farming practices, the grams of sugar in each bottle and which foods the wine pairs best with, not necessarily the granular details about soil quality or the aging process.
“The new generation of consumer wants as much information as possible, but they want it in a digestible format,” said ABC wine expert Nathan Dale. “Things like the mash bill of a whiskey or the brix at harvest for a wine have made consumers savvier and more armed with the knowledge to make an informed decision, while also giving them discussion points.”
Whether we liked it or not, we all got pretty good at making our favorite cocktails at home during lockdown. That kind of widespread shift in consumer knowledge didn’t just disappear after bars reopened, especially as cost-of-living expenses increase and the expendable income to buy several rounds of frilly, $20 craft cocktails at bars and restaurants decreases proportionally.
“The average price of one cocktail in downtown Orlando is $16,” said ABC wine expert Janessa Schuster. “You can buy a whole 1.75L bottle of ready-made margaritas or a bottle of coffee liqueur for that same price and have more to drink at home.”
So, we expect self-made mixologists to continue stocking their home bars with full-size bottles of their favorite spirits and cordials, aperitifs, mixers and mixing accessories.
Don’t worry, we won’t let you spend your entire paycheck at a bougie cocktail bar with a neon pink sign that says, “You’re like, really pretty” and puts rubber duckies in their drinks ever again.
At the end of the day, all consumers want is a delicious product that consistently over-delivers on quality for the price. Wine and spirits lovers will continue to seek premium and ultra-premium options if it’s within their budget. If not, there are plenty of producers outside the most popular (and, as a result, most expensive) regions making amazing stuff for value-driven prices.
For those seeking the crème de la crème, either for themselves or to gift to a loved one, top shelf bottles like Clase Azul, Don Julio 1942 and Haton Brut Reserve Champagne are always right on time.
As we mentioned, more and more consumers are only looking to spend their hard-earned dollars on brands who are actively working to protect the environment or, at the very least, significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Sustainability remains a central focus for drinkers and producers alike. After all, wineries and distilleries can see the writing on the wall, too: they don’t want to make a living tilling dying land. Eco-conscious production and consumption is a win for everybody.
“Every winemaker I have visited over the past years eventually talks about the effects of climate change,” ABC wine expert Paul Quaglini said. “Grape growers and winemakers are almost universally doing things to take better care of their environment and protect vines from climate extremes.”
But, unfortunately, even winemakers’ best efforts toward combating environmental decay aren’t enough to erase it entirely. Indeed, regions of the world that were historically inhospitable to grape growing are now slightly warmer, meaning that we may see brand-new wine regions and winemaking styles that have never been tasted before.
“Great Champagne houses are buying vineyards in England. Countries like Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands, which were never warm enough to ripen wine grapes sufficiently before, are beginning to make wine. Warm-climate grapes like syrah may be introduced into formerly cool-climate Alsace. Germany is producing truly great pinot noir for the first time due to warming. Wineries and grape-growers in general are looking for cooler, higher altitude land to plant their vines,” said ABC wine expert Bill Stobbs. “All of this will have an impact on the wine that you will be sipping in the near future.”
When you can get a stellar bottle of sparkling wine for around $10, why save bubbles for special occasions? Our experts see sparkling and fizzy wines maintaining their POPularity in 2024. See what we did there?
From traditional Champagne to cava, Prosecco, moscato and even slightly sparkling frizzante wines (like our bestselling Giorgi Costarosa Sangue di Giuda), sparkling wines come at every price point and any level of sweetness, meaning even a regular weeknight is reason enough to pop a bottle of bubbly.
We’ve chronicled the rise of the ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktail, from cheap, sugary cans of artificial sweeteners and grain alcohol to the hard seltzer boom of the mid-2010s to now, when you can crack open a canned cocktail that tastes just as good as a freshly mixed one from your favorite bar. We see the RTD category through the lens of a proud parent who has watched their progeny mature and truly come into their own.
Despite its rapid expansion and innovation in the past 10 years, the RTD category is far from saturated. We anticipate more delicious new developments from beloved brands and new ones on the scene. Keep an eye out for new releases, and if your favorite cocktail hasn’t been canned successfully yet, 2024 might be your year.
Finally, the beverage industry’s endeavors to offer high-quality drink options that cater to each consumer’s wellness goals will continue into 2024. That means low to no alcohol and low to no sugar options. That means premium options that only use the best ingredients, no junk. That means organic, vegan and biodynamic options, which go hand-in-hand with the push for sustainability.
Drinking well means something different to everyone, whether it’s watching sugar intake or only buying wine that uses regenerative farming practices. Regardless, wine and spirits producers will keep taking consumer cares and concerns to heart as they formulate their products.
But who knows, right? Long Island Iced Teas could explode next year (*shudder*) or gin could take off or Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce could launch their own wine label (Taylor’s Sips? Kelce’s Corks? Whatever, we’ll workshop it) that sells out in seconds. Regardless, you know your friendly neighborhood ABC will be stocked with everything you need to satisfy your cravings and explore whatever trends the new year has in store for us. Cheers to 2024!
