Dry January – that joyous month of sobriety is upon us. Time to assess its part in the wider trend of moderation and the whole cyclical vs structural debate in the drinks industry. Tom Bruce-Gardyne sifts through the evidence and reports on some good news from the US …    

As it launched its annual 'Dry January Challenge', the charity behind it - Alcohol Change UK - claimed that as "many as 17.5 million people could be planning to take part." That is a big number, almost one in three of the adult population, though the use of the word "could" suggests a degree of uncertainty, what with New Year's resolutions being what they are.

Those that actually signed up on the charity's website for last year's challenge was a more modest 200,000 globally. There is also evidence that the event that has been going since 2013, may be running out of steam. The research company IWSR reported that among Gen Z drinkers "who have always been its most enthusiastic adopters," those claiming to have been sober for a month or more fell from 33% in 2024 to 24% last year.

Across the Channel, the wine industry's Vin & Société has launched a counter-initiative called French January. "Let's do moderation, not abstinence," it declared, and urged people to adopt "a modern version of the French art-de-vivre… which values conviviality, responsibility and freedom of choice."

In the US, Trevor Stirling, MD for European and American beverages at Bernstein, says that: "If you look at American social media, some of the influencers are talking about why they are not going to do Dry January this year. And instead, they're doing Damp January."

What any of this means for Scotch whisky is hard to say. In the short-term probably not a lot. Retail sales of Scotch in January have always been pretty subdued, not least because so many bottles are gifted at Christmas. And yet, however many embark on this month of communal sobriety and stay the course, it seems to reflect a broader cultural shift to moderation.

In America, a recent Gallup poll claimed that just 54% of adults now drink alcohol, the lowest level in almost ninety years. Of course, polling on the issue of booze, as with sex, is never particularly reliable, but we do know that measured in terms of pure alcohol, US consumption has shrunk by about 10% over the past five years.

The big, publicly-quoted distillers are at pains to stress the cyclical nature of the current decline in demand rather than admit to any long-term structural shift, and that spirits have been gaining share at the expense of beer and wine. So, where does an experienced analyst of the drinks industry like Trevor Stirling sit on this whole debate?

"It is a mixture of both," he says. "For example, there's a lot of evidence that says that a lot of younger people are drinking less alcohol. On one level that's a structural argument. On the other hand, why are they drinking less alcohol? There's an awful lot of evidence to say that they're skint. Youth unemployment is high. They're having to live with their parents because they can't afford a property, so, I think there's a bit of an overlap."

"It's not quite black and white – structural versus cyclical. For what it's worth, in the United States it's probably close to fifty : fifty." He goes on to explain that some of what seems to be structural, could easily be reversed. "American concerns about alcohol in a health and wellness context have shot up in the last couple of years, and now we have the new guidelines in the US that are if anything slightly milder. And maybe the slightly fevered rhetoric around alcohol is going to die back a bit."  

Dr Oz, former TV celebrity and now head of US Medicare, caused a stir at last week's press conference announcing the delayed US dietary guidelines for 2025-30. "In the best-case scenario, I don't think you should drink alcohol," he said. "But it does allow people an excuse to bond and socialise, and there's probably nothing healthier than having a good time with friends in a safe way."

"The implication is don't have it for breakfast," he added, which inevitably became the headline. As for the old recommendation of "two glasses a day for a man and one for a woman", that was dropped because "there was never really good data to support that quantity of alcohol consumption."

You cannot begin to imagine a UK health secretary announcing there's "nothing healthier than having a good time," in the context of drink. To many it will sound like common sense – rare indeed from the current White House, but it was quickly dismissed by the public health lobby. No doubt the drinks industry had written Dr Oz's script.

Meanwhile the American Heart Association has reopened the debate on whether moderate consumption reduces the risk of heart disease, with a new report which claimed that it did, substantially. Ever since 1926, similar studies have reached the same conclusion, but are now suppressed for fear of encouraging drinking. Like little children, we must be protected from such complex arguments.

"But there are plenty of things people do that have both harms and benefits," retorted the report's lead author, Dr Tawakol, Harvard professor of medicine. "Allowing people to hear only one side is frustrating and confusing. If we provide the full picture, we can empower people to make better decisions about their own health." Dry January or not, that's something worth drinking to.