John Phipps: The COVID Hangover? Why People Are Now Drinking More
USFR John's World 1-5-23
This first weekend after New Year’s Day seems an auspicious time to check into one of the overlooked consequences of the pandemic. While it seems like it is sort of over, COVID has tricked us before.
It is still hassling the people of China, who seem to have postponed more than avoided the burden.
With some superb charts by Justin Fox in Bloomberg we can examine one aspect of pandemic experts have noticed, namely consumption of more alcohol during and especially immediately after the isolations and quarantines. Even after adjustment for rampant inflation, it suggests our drink choices changed as well as spending.
So maybe the chart of spending is skewed by relatively greater consumption of more expensive beverages. Another chart shows apparent alcohol consumption measured in gallons of ethanol, which adds another perspective on consumption. Note it only goes to 2020, so post-pandemic trends can only be extrapolated.
It still suggests that the switch to spirits mostly from beer probably continues. In part it is driven by younger drinkers reviving the cocktail, especially premixed products. Also, we are drinking more craft beers in lower quantities, probably due to pricier brews.
The interesting aspect of this for rural America is the sharp decline of dry counties, virtually all of which were rural. These maps show dry counties in red comparing 2011 to 2018. The greatest change occurred in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, and Tennessee.
I would guess agriculture’s embrace of microbreweries and small distilleries, many on farms, represented an income source that weighed against the remnants of Prohibition. The local tax revenue from liquor sales almost certainly helped the change as well. Note the change in Kentucky, whose farmers have embraced the Bourbon Trail. Premium liquors from such small distilleries are the fastest growing market segment as American consumers scale up their tastes.
These trends were already in place before the pandemic, but our pandemic binge shows no sign of stopping, and the health impact will be a problem for future generations. In fact, alcohol-related deaths have increased sharply since the pandemic. My guess is we’ll be discovering more side-effects of COVID. It might even be fair to say, that the globe will suffer from a long COVID hangover.
