Scotch soars in control states as Canadian whisky drops
Scotch, gin and Tequila grew their volumes in US monopoly states last month as whisky from Canada and Ireland struggled.
Volume sales of Scotch whisky rebounded in February, recording its second month in growth for March across 18 US control states.
According to data from the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association (NABCA), Scotch volumes rose by 11.4% in March, and by 2.2% in value, which it attributed mainly to New Hampshire (up 256.8% in Scotch sales).
The ‘cocktails’ segment, which includes ready-to-drink (RTD) products, posted the biggest volume and value gain of all spirits categories in March – skyrocketing by 30.1% in volume and by 28.4% in value.
Other categories that grew last month were cachaça (up 12.2%), Tequila (up 1.9%), gin (up 1.6%) and cordials (liqueurs), which rose by 0.8%.
Value-wise, only cachaça, cocktails, gin and Scotch increased in March.
The biggest decrease in terms of volume came from the ‘other imported whisky’ segment, which fell by 10.2% last month.
In terms of whisky, Canadian-made products suffered an 8.8% volume drop while Irish whiskey was down by 5.6% and domestic whiskey dipped by 1% in March.
Total spirits sales across US control states posted an uptick of 1.2% in volume in March, but decreased by 1.6% in value. Revenue was impacted by five additional selling days with two extra selling days in Utah and three more days in Michigan.
For the 12 months to March 2026, spirits volumes across all control states dipped by 1% and by 2.7% in value.
There was a mixed performance state by state when it came to spirits sales. The biggest volume gain came from New Hampshire (up 20.7%), followed by Mississippi (up 11.5%), Wyoming (up 10.6%) and Utah (up 8.3%).
Meanwhile, spirits volume losses were recorded in seven states, including Idaho (down 5.2%), Vermont (down 4.7%), Ohio (down 4.6%), and Oregon (down 4.1%).
In other control state news, Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC) recently agreed to sell its operations in 17 markets to Martignetti Companies.
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