A few months into the pandemic, sales of beer and cider from wholesalers had their busiest summer yet.
Over 16.5 million gallons of beer and cider were purchased by retailers from June to August in 2020, higher than the two previous summers. That’s the equivalent to over 176.5 million 12-ounce bottles of beer or cider.
Spirits also had a busy summer. July 2020 saw more wholesale sales of spirits of any month, at more than 806,000 gallons, the equivalent of 68.8 million 1.5-ounce servings.
The total for the entire summer of 2020, 188.1 million 1.5-ounce servings, was also a above previous summers but was still outpaced by purchases in the 2021 summer, the equivalent of 194.8 million drinks, and again in the summer of 2022, where the equivalent of more than 198,000 drinks were sold to retailers.
Wines, whose wholesale purchases usually peak from October to December, continued a decline as the pandemic went on.
In that three-month period in 2018 and 2019, the equivalent amount of wine purchased by retailers hovered just above 104 million 5-ounce servings. However, in 2020, it dropped to 100 million servings, until it declined to 95 million servings in 2022.
Read more: How Connecticut changed during COVID, in 10 charts