James Kempland saw the writing on the wall all the way back in 2017: Alcohol consumption among younger people was on the decline. At the time, Kempland was the director of marketing for Angel’s Envy, a Kentucky Straight Bourbon owned by Bacardi.
The clues of this impending drop-off in drinking among Gen Z and some younger Millennials started popping up in the market research that Kempland follows closely given his background in strategic marketing.
“That’s what began to startle me, because if that trend was continuing, number one, why? And number two, what did it portend?” he says. “As we’ve advanced since then, this is obviously no longer a trend; it’s a movement. The non-alcoholic beverage category, whether that’s beer, wine, or spirits, is truly here to stay.”…