**Anniversary**
- Episode 52. One year of the DrinxAI Weekly. Thanks to the distributor and supplier partners who provided feedback all year.
- Year one defining threads: drinking participation at a record low fifty four percent; the RNDC collapse and wholesale reconsolidation under Reyes, Martignetti, and Southern Glazer's; the whiskey unwind from Stoli to Uncle Nearest; Gallo and Four Roses at seven hundred seventy five million dollars and Sazerac's rejected fifteen billion dollar run at Brown Forman; wine's physical contraction to roughly five hundred forty thousand California acres; RTDs, non alcoholic, and energy drinks carrying all the growth; tariffs turning into a direct line item; hemp THC beverages entering regulation; and repeated constitutional challenges to the three tier system.
**This week**
- Two speed US market: volumes recede across beer, wine, and core spirits while RTDs, energy drinks, non alcoholic wine, affordable premium tequila (Tito's Lalo, 818), sparkling in the fifteen to twenty dollar range, Prosecco, Champagne, and heritage beer (Modelo, Michelob Ultra, Pacifico, Guinness) deliver growth and mix.
- Beer reset: TD Cowen one hundred fifty dollar STZ target; NielsenIQ, CITI, Evercore, and Circana scanners confirm the "Cruel Summer" read; ABI outperforming via Michelob and Busch; Constellation terminating Coors Distributing in Colorado, six million cases, with Reyes likely successor; Kroger and Red Bull standoff.
- Spirits and Diageo: RTDs masking core weakness; Crown Royal down seventeen percent; Cameronbridge strike; a billion dollars of cost cuts; the 2.3 billion dollar EABL sale to Asahi cleared; new Montgomery, Alabama plant; affordability pivot for Don Julio and Casamigos.
- Wine contraction: twelve to twenty five percent of California acreage and the associated jobs gone; Boomer decline and cellar drinking; sparkling and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc as pockets of demand; Judd's Hill winding down; tariffs against import demand.
- Distribution shocks: RNDC bankruptcy sale of control state brokerage to Martignetti at 14.5 million dollars; Summit Brewing BMO foreclosure at 8.22 million dollars; Southern Glazer's 12.5 million dollar non prosecution agreement over California supermarket incentives, with named executives and suppliers.
- Legal and regulatory: three tier challenges (Blue Sky Vineyards in California, Full Pull Wines in Illinois, Hoopes in Napa); home still circuit split (Ream); Costco Kirkland tequila class action; New York hemp THC crackdown and grocery wine push; Massachusetts ABCC penalty flexibility; Visa and Mastercard swipe fee settlement opposition.
- Tariffs and trade: planned removal of the ten percent Irish whiskey tariff; Canadian packaged alcohol ban September 29 with a bulk whisky workaround that protects Crown Royal; US spirits exports to Canada down seventy percent.
- Consumer and macro: stressed, value seeking shoppers (Kroger miss, SNAP, freight); August retail sales up 1.2 percent; CPI 3.4 percent; average beer case 31 dollars and 53 cents; K shaped spending; on premise visits down five percent.
- M&A and other: Sazerac (Au Vodka, Berentzen talks, failed fifteen billion dollar Brown Forman approach, Garrard County); Veritas Vineyard; Artisanal Spirits route to market shift; Destilería Serrallés CEO; VIP and Encompass technology merger; Middleby exits brewing equipment; Marmalade Cafe bankruptcy; alcohol attributable cancer deaths doubled to 23,126.
