There is a thread running through some recent conversations about American beer: hops. Not as a generic ingredient, but as a precise choice, a brewing approach, a way of shaping aroma. On one side is a beer that helped redefine the American IPA. On the other is the seasonal return of fresh hops, which each […]
For a long time, hydrating and energising were treated as separate acts. Water on one side, functional drinks on the other. Two products, two moments, two ways of thinking about consumption. Recent launches suggest that this split is becoming less rigid, especially as brands start designing drinks around occasions rather than around traditional category lines. […]
Today, in many cases, the landscape weighs as much as or more than wine reputation when travelers choose a wine-tourism destination. That is a useful clue to how the experience is changing: not just a winery visit, but a broader way of traveling, shaped by place, food, stories and a more direct relationship with the […]
If you look at the shopping basket, the picture across Europe’s six largest grocery markets is fairly clear: spending on alcoholic drinks is easing, while non-alcoholic beverages continue to gain ground. That is the reading from Circana data for France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, and it points to more than […]
Some shifts in beer make more sense once they stop looking like exceptions and start reading like clues. One is BridgePort’s new IPA, released in Portland, Oregon, in 1996: a local brewery, a very clear idea of what hops could do, and a beer that helped bring attention to the aromatic profile of American cultivars, […]
In the first seven months of 2026, EU agri-food trade monitoring data showed a 10% increase in exports of spirits and liqueurs compared with the same period in 2025. At the same time, wine remained in negative territory and overall European agri-food exports were weaker. The picture does not point to a dramatic market shift, […]
One word keeps appearing in the language of contemporary whisky: provenance. It does not refer only to the place printed on the label, but to the way a product is assembled piece by piece. The barley comes from a specific field, the casks from a controlled supply chain, the water from a spring or a […]
There is a question becoming increasingly relevant in the beverage world: how do you occupy alcohol’s social space without alcohol? The answer does not seem to lie in a single format, but in a set of strategies that some brands are testing to enter the same occasions with a different identity. One of the clearest […]
Wine has not stopped attracting interest. In many cases, though, it has lost some of its immediacy: it does not always speak in a language that makes people want to taste it rather than keep their distance. That is an important distinction, because the issue is not only the product itself, but the way it […]
There is a point when a beverage category stops growing mainly through curiosity and starts relying on something else. For spirits-based ready-to-drink products, that moment now seems close. Over the past five years, the segment has attracted many first-time buyers, helped by a broader range of flavours, different base spirits and formats designed for a […]