🍹 Drinking Culture

The gin hangover

For a decade, gin was the answer to every question. Then the country moved on. Gin & tonic crawled just +9% and pink gin fell −17% — while tequila exploded +118% and cognac +82%. The agave-and-brown era has arrived, and the Jäger generation is over.

By PartyTrends Research Desk 5 June 2026 8 min read Data: Jun 2022 – May 2026

The 60-second version

  • 🥃 Tequila is the new king (+118%), with cognac (+82%) close behind — agave and brown spirits are surging.
  • 🍸 Gin plateaued: gin & tonic only +9%, pink gin −17% — the 2010s darling cooled hard.
  • ☠️ The old guard collapsed: Jägermeister −22%, Baileys −11%, liqueurs −7% — the shooter era is ending.
  • 🍇 The Western Cape is a gin island — its "gin bar" interest dwarfs Gauteng and KZN per person.

Every era has its spirit. The 2010s belonged to gin — craft distilleries everywhere, a botanical for every mood, a pink gin in every hand. But trends in alcohol move in long, generational waves, and the data captures a changing of the guard: gin has plateaued, the shooter is dying, and a new agave-and- brown aristocracy has taken the throne.

The new aristocracy

Agave and brown take over

The spirits leaderboard is led by drinks that signal a more "grown-up", sipping-oriented palate: tequila (increasingly sipped, not shot), cognac, brandy and rum. These are spirits of intention — and they're growing far faster than the clear-spirit darlings of the last decade.

Fig. 1The spirits growth leaderboard

Four-year change across the rising spirit categories.

The takeaway: Tequila (+118%) and cognac (+82%) lead, with rum, whisky and vodka up modestly.

Tequila's rise mirrors a global premium-agave wave — sipping tequila and margaritas, not slammers. Cognac's surge ties to its cultural moment in music and nightlife. Brown and agave are aspirational now.

Fig. 2The old guard in retreat

Spirit categories in decline.

The takeaway: Jägermeister (−22%), pink gin (−17%), Baileys (−11%) and liqueurs (−7%) are all falling.

This is the shooter generation aging out. Jäger and sticky liqueurs were the drinks of a different era of going out — the era that the cocktail and the sipping spirit have replaced.

The main event

Gin vs tequila

Nothing captures the shift like putting the outgoing champion against the incoming one. Gin isn't crashing — it's a huge, established category — but its momentum has flatlined while tequila races past.

Fig. 3Gin & tonic vs tequila

Monthly demand for gin & tonic and tequila.

The takeaway: Gin & tonic plateaus while tequila climbs sharply — the curves are crossing.

A plateau isn't a death — gin remains massive and beloved. But "plateaued while the rival surged" is exactly how a category goes from the trend to just another option on the shelf.

The last gin stronghold

The Western Cape gin island

Gin's national plateau hides a fierce regional loyalty. Per person, interest in the dedicated gin bar is overwhelmingly concentrated in one province — a reminder that "national" trends often live or die locally.

Fig. 4Gin-bar intensity by province (per million residents)

"Gin bar" searches per million people per month.

The takeaway: The Western Cape dwarfs Gauteng and KZN — gin culture is a Cape phenomenon.

The craft-gin boom was always strongest in the Cape's distillery-and-tasting culture. Even as the national wave recedes, the gin bar remains a distinctly Western Cape institution.

Fig. 5The spirits map

Average monthly search volume across agave/brown, clear and the old guard.

The takeaway: Gin and vodka still command huge volume; agave and brown are the fast-growing challengers.

The map shows a category mid-transition: the clear-spirit incumbents are still the biggest, but the growth energy has decisively moved to agave, brown and the considered sip.

Table 1 — The changing of the guard
Rising4-yr changeFalling4-yr change
Tequila+118%Jägermeister−22%
Cognac+82%Pink gin−17%
Rum+20%Baileys−11%
Gin & tonic+9%Liqueurs−7%
🥃
If you build a drinks list Make room for agave and brown: a serious tequila and margarita section, cognac, sipping rum and whisky. Keep gin — it\'s still huge — but stop treating it as the growth story. And if you\'re in the Western Cape, the gin bar is still a winner.

The verdict

The wave moved on

Spirits trends are tides, not switches. Gin's great wave didn't crash so much as recede, leaving behind a permanently larger, calmer category and a devoted Cape stronghold. In its place rises a more deliberate kind of drinking — tequila sipped slowly, cognac poured neatly, the shooter quietly retired. South Africa didn't fall out of love with gin. It just grew up and ordered something else.

Gin didn't lose. It just stopped being the answer to every question.

PartyTrends Research Desk
📊 Methodology & honest limitations
  • Source. Aggregated South African search demand for spirits keywords, monthly, June 2022 – May 2026.
  • Growth. First 12 months vs the most recent 12. Province figures normalised per million residents (Census 2022).
  • Caveat. Brand and category search interest reflects attention, not litres poured; gin remains very large in absolute terms despite its plateau.

References & further reading

Figures are PartyTrends' own analysis of the search-demand dataset described above. Sources below corroborate the wider context.

  1. The Spirits Business, The global tequila & agave boom. thespiritsbusiness.com
  2. Statistics South Africa, Census 2022 — population context for per-capita figures. statssa.gov.za
  3. PartyTrends, The Cocktail Republic — how cocktails reshaped spirits demand. partytrends.co.za/blog
  4. PartyTrends, The Sober Lie — the premium-drinking paradox. partytrends.co.za/blog
  5. PartyTrends, Drink Stats — live spirits demand tracker. partytrends.co.za/stats

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