Specialty Food Magazine

W hen COVID-19 had the entire country hunkered down at home, virtual happy hours and cocktail classes via social media platforms and video conferencing technology became the new norm. As socializing at home spurred consumers to stock up on their favorite alcoholic beverages, cocktail components and liquor sales soared. According to a June 2020 report from Drizly, an alcohol e-commerce marketplace that services the U.S. and Canada, consumers not only ordered more frequently, but also at a larger quantity per order, with average order size up 50 percent higher than baseline going into the week of March 16. This included sales of beer, wine, and liquor. During the last week in May, New York City experienced some of the highest week-over- week growth above baseline, according to the online platform—jumping from 190 percent to 260 percent. Some markets have steadily experienced growth well above the national average, including Westchester, New York; Norwalk and Hartford-New Haven, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Minneapolis. Houston and San Antonio experienced a higher amount of growth above baseline, as did Seattle, Newark, New Jersey, and Boston. Drizly also reports the biggest success stories heading into the warmer months included mezcal, (accelerating 1,064 percent growth above average). Subcategories that were dominating the week of Memorial Day included hard seltzer, ready-to- drink, and cocktail accoutrements and ingredients. According to Nielsen data, off-premise sales of spirits in the U.S. were up 34.1 percent from last year for the nine-week period ending May 2, while wine sales grew 30.1 percent during the same time. Beer sales were up 12.6 percent. And spiked seltzers, which last year were just emerging and showing strong promise, were up an astounding 456 percent year-over-year during the week of March 21. While alcohol sales continue to soar, the fate of entertaining culture for both food and drink continues to evolve. "The future of entertaining will be about creating unique experiences at home that replicate the diversity and expertise we typically see outside of the home," says Kalyn Rozanski, co-founder and innovation trend expert of Ebco, a consumer trends and insights company based in Austin, Texas. Rozanski says she is seeing consumers investing in appliances that help to create a more expert-level experience at home—from fancy ice and bread machines to pasta makers and outdoor pizza ovens—as well as restaurants that are selling their condiments, curated kits, and beverage kits to provide a restaurant-quality experience at home. "These new 'mixing and matching' behaviors (like buying high-end condiments or cocktail kits to supplement an otherwise ordinary/average meal) create a unique take on something as well as meet specific budgets—all reshaping how consumers entertain," she says. Fast forward to June when COVID-19 quarantine restrictions loosened: Socially distant outdoor gatherings were more prevalent and specialty food bites became a trend that will move A Smoky Manhattan with Bitters Lab Smoky Cedar Currant Bitters 42 SPECIALTY FOOD SPECIALTYFOOD.COM CATEGORY SPOTLIGHT

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