Second ‘Roaring 20s’ not just about hedonism, analyst warns

The second ‘Roaring 20s’ “has already started” but will also bring economic polarisation, a leading analyst has said.

Spiros Malandrakis, head of research – alcoholic drinks, Euromonitor International, told The Spirits Business last December that he believed a second ‘Roaring 20s’ would come about following the pandemic.

Speaking to The Spirits Business again last month, Malandrakis noted that this would be a decade-long period of hedonism – but combined with the economic turmoil also experienced during the 1920s.

“If anything, the ‘Roaring 20s’ has already started in countries that have already reopened. But one thing to clarify is we are talking about a decade, not a year, not the next six months,” Malandrakis said.

“When I talk about the ‘Roaring 20s’, I’m mostly referring to the psychology of embracing indulgence and hedonism, rather than everyone will be buying more premium spirits.

“The 1920s was not only parties; it was a period of macro-economic upheaval, which we’ll see now. It was a period of extremely polarised reactions with what people were buying, and society becoming more polarised – the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

“This undercurrent was also part of the ‘Roaring 20s’; lots of people lost jobs, the situation was quite precarious.”

Recovery: optimistic outlook

Malandrakis, does, however, remain hopeful about the recovery of the spirits sector.

“My general outlook when it comes to all spirits is that we are definitely in a period of recovery, this is something we have seen in markets that managed to fully reopen in the last few months,” he said. “The on-trade proved to be much quicker to bounce back than people expected, in all markets where it could.

“We are seeing new lockdowns and the appearance of new variants. But still, overall, the situation this year is definitely a massive improvement on 2020 in my mind.

“There will, of course, be stops and starts, periods when it feels like two steps back and one forward, but in a way we are reaching the final stages of the nightmare.

“Spirits are proving they’re resilient, and in the on-trade consumers are very willing to rush back into on-trade establishments whenever they’re able to.”

Earlier this month, SB explored the state of the on-trade in four regions: Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific, and Africa and the Middle East.