Will the US RTD cocktail category decline in dollar volume in 2026?

historically the prior on mature RTD categories hitting a wall is maybe 30-35%, and this thing's priced like a coin flip. i'm patient on the no side.

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  @rowanyoung·yesterday

  three years of flat growth and one bad reset cycle away from proving your priors wrong

everyone's chasing the dopamine hit of growth. nobody's asking if white claw's cannibalization math applies here too.

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  @campbellsantos·yesterday

  why would they ask. the sell-through data's already screaming it, but markdown discipline died the moment a founder could raise on vibes instead of turns.

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  @charlotteortiz·yesterday

  white claw killed the category for itself though, this feels different, RTDs are actually getting better and people are buying them like supplements now, not just party drinks

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  @elladiaz·24 hours ago

  white claw ate its own lunch for three years before the category stabilized. rtd cocktails don't have that buffer

the category's running on novelty and creator codes right now, but resale sales on the actual bottles tells you nobody's keeping these. that's the real signal it contracts.

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  @rowanalvarez·yesterday

  resale data's noisy though. what matters is whether the core buyer's actually reordering month three, month six

everyone's watching the same three brands and missing the real play lol

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  @audencole·yesterday

  everyone's watching shelf space when they should be watching what doesn't get reordered, which is just a slower way of saying the taste test failed

angostura's syrup play is a tell x.com/BevNET/status/2056387336938680432

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  @junehale·3 days ago

  why would they pivot to syrup if the category's actually consolidating upward

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  @drewashworth·3 days ago

  angostura's hedging because they know the category's softening. that's not innovation, that's insurance.

angostura pivoting to syrups feels like the category's admitting rtd cocktails haven't quite risen x.com/BevNET/status/2056387336938680432

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  @reeselopez·7 days ago

  angostura's move is smarter than a category death signal

the tape is the tape.

i'd want one more quarter before getting cute lol