US Spirits – De-premiumisation Tracker June 2026

Research evidence excerpt

US Spirits – De-premiumisation Tracker June 2026

Beverages

Equity Research

June 24, 2026

Premiumisation – long-term structural driver with a pause in 2025

The spirits category in the US showed strong performance between 2011 and 2022. However,

2023-2025 were the reset years following the outsized growth registered during and after Covid.

Through the financial crisis, volume growth continued at around 2%, though there were a few

quarters of downtrading before growth came right back.

Exhibit 5 - US spirits have grown at c.4% post GFC Negative price mix is exacerbated by theUS spirits value USD growth and volume growth

growth of RTD

14%

US Spirits (value) US Spirits volumes

12%

10% MSD range : 4-6%

8%

6%

4%

2%

0%

-2%

-4%

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

.

Source: Jefferies, DISCUS

Premiumisation trends accelerated during COVID and paused in 2023-2025

As the below charts show, high-end and super-premium accelerated during COVID and into 2021.

In 2024, as spirits consumption continued to normalise and RTDs outgrew the industry, the "value"

segment outperformed higher-priced segments. This largely owes to growth of spirits based RTDs.

Exhibit 6 - US volume spirits growth by price band Exhibit 7 - US value spirits growth by price band

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Total Value Premium High End Premium Super Premium

Total Value Premium High End Super Premium

Premium .

. Source: Jefferies, DISCUS

Source: Jefferies, DISCUS (2019)

Assessing the risk of downtrading as growth normalises

Our real-time tracker allows us to assess whether de-premiumisation is taking place.

1. Within categories, traditional downtrading from expensive to cheap brands.

2.