Are we nearly through the pumpkin pie martini era and entering pomegranate spritz vibes yet? This week we’re bringing you the most surprising cocktail trends expected to take flight next year and how you might want to gear up your sales staff to embrace them.

What insiders are reading: Check out how Sazerac manages all those brands and 3 Tier's Quarterly Review of beverage industry data. 

Thanks for reading.

-BevNET spirits editor, Ferron Salniker

The turkey may not be in the oven yet, but the trend forecasts for next year are piping hot. Here are a few of the most interesting cocktail styles and formats we’re hearing whispers of:

Lychee is back. Blame it on the martini resurgence, which is expected to continue. 

“The lychee martini in particular, but martinis overall, all started exploding in the 90s in New York, and now they're back again with really contemporary ingredient twists,” said Brian Masilionis, senior director of commercial development for Southern Glazer’s. 

Masilionis is fresh off the distributor’s 2024 Liquid Insights Tour, a coast-to-coast initiative focused on exploring the top trends shaping the wine and spirits industry with research in six markets. The fruit, along with other Asian ingredients, has made a comeback: in Austin, a lychee martini was on draft; in New York, a fried chicken and champagne spot (didn’t see that combo coming) offered a lychee-shaped ice cube in a vodka martini served in a rocks glass, adding flavor as it melted. 

Those kinds of contemporary takes on the martini are expected to continue, particularly with savory ingredients, and in the format of ice-cold freezer martinis, which are basically pre-batched problem solvers for busy bars, according to agencies af&co and Carbonate in their 2025 Hospitality Trends Report. 

Vodka has also found itself under a martini halo: during the last Liquid Insights Tour in 2022, vodka was the number three category as the lead spirit for cocktails, but shot up to number one this year. While tequila is king of dollar growth because of queen margarita, vodka’s volume rein is now showing up in trend-forward cocktails again. 

Another trend “popping” up? Boba in cocktails, according to af&co. Gen Z has grown up with bubble tea and sales of the Taiwanese drink in bottles and cans have been bubbling up, so it makes sense we’re seeing some very smart bartenders lure younger drinkers in with chewy tapioca pearls.

Speaking of tiny fun things, smaller portions of cocktails (mini cocktails) and wine are becoming increasingly popular, giving guests the chance to try more drinks without the commitment of a full serving. Masilionis says the trend offers bartenders the flexibility to provide trial experiences and low-ABV options while maximizing profitability with higher-margin percentage mini portions, which are especially easy when pre-batched. 

We’ll have more as we get closer to the new year, but in the meantime what does this mean for suppliers? Put the vodka in your portfolio front-and-center if you haven’t already. Plus, keep innovating around how you can help your accounts differentiate in easy, fun ways in a tough economic climate. 

With sake’s roots going back to ancient China, the rice wine has been through many evolutions. Now, many brewers are chasing global trends to bring American drinkers into the sake fold. Sliding into the $10 billion RTD market in the U.S. is one way sake makers are hoping to find inroads into American shelves and bars. Other brands are taking a fancier approach and see a down wine market as an opportunity to give higher-end consumers a different experience but with that same low-ABV, luxury feel. But warming up American palates to foreign beverages has historically taken years and big education budgets, luckily more Japanese brewers and emerging American sake breweries are up to the task. Read my deep dive. 

An Oceans 13-level heist disappeared two truckloads of Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar's Santo Tequila tequila last week. Apparently, it wasn’t a unique incident: data analytics from Verisk CargoNet, which is investigating the case show that incidents of alcoholic beverage theft are down slightly from 2023, but whereas hard seltzer comprised much of stolen product in the past, this year it’s been almost exclusively hard liquor. In California, food and beverage theft has increased by 325% in 2023 compared to 2022 and continues to be one of the highest-impacted commodities. Celebrities, they’re just like us! Read how it went down and what you can do to protect your cargo.

“Moms don't discover brands on-premise,” according to Kat Hantas, co-founder of flavored tequila 21Seeds. Created by three women in 2019, flavored tequila 21Seeds found a niche in tequila by catering to an underserved demographic – moms. They also targeted the at-home drinking occasion previously occupied by wine, and they did it fortuitously right before the COVID-19 lockdowns. We chatted with Hantas about how she pushed back on industry norms, why the company culture enabled her team to move fast, and what entrepreneurs should look out for when beginning the acquisition process. Read the interview.

Speaking of bubble tea: You may remember an episode from the Shark Tank Canadian equivalent, Dragon’s Den, in which actor Simon Liu questioned an entrepreneur duo about their mission to "disrupt the [nearly] $4 billion tea market” and their pitch in which “they positioned their brand to capitalize on a beverage once considered strange by Western standards,” writes Estar Tseng for Bon Appetit. I know this is our spirits newsletter, but we see plenty of the same positioning in bev-alc, in which cultural erasure pays in a capitalistic economy – how can it be done differently?