The Sobering News: Survey Finds Drop in Liquor Imports

Shipments of hard liquor fell last year to the lowest point since an industry survey began in 1970, a development attributed to Americans’ new love of health and fear of addiction.

With only a few ups among the downs, sales of distilled goods fell 4.2% last year, to 159 million cases in 1988 from 166 million cases in 1987, the trade publication Impact reports in its current edition.

Liquor sales last year were 2.5% below the 163 million cases shipped in 1970, the first year Impact began its industrywide survey. A case equals nine liters.

Industry experts have blamed the new American abstemiousness on a variety of factors: growing health consciousness, the aging of the baby boom generation, the powerful campaigns in recent years against drunk driving and intoxication by alcohol and drugs.

In the late 1970s, some in the industry hoped that hard liquor sales would rise as the baby boom generation grew out of beer and wine. Instead, distaste for drinking appears to be drying up sales of all alcoholic beverages.

Total wine consumption in this country dropped to 552.2 million gallons in 1988, down 28.7 million gallons, or 4.9%, from the previous year, the industry publication Wines & Vines reported last month.

Beer sales, too, were flat, registering a negligible rise to 2.4 million cases in 1988.