Study Reveals Seattle Area Pandemic Drinking Habits

SEATTLE —A study by market-research giant Nielsen found that during the pandemic, consumption of hard liquor and wine increased in the Seattle metro area, beer drinking stayed relatively stable and the consumption of hard cider actually decreased.

The results of the study were published Tuesday in the Seattle Times. The study compared Seattle-area drinking habits from Feb. 2020 to Feb. 2021 -mostly during the pandemic - with pre-pandemic drinking habits from Feb. 2019 to Feb. 2020. The study surveyed people in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, which together have a population of over 3 million people 18 years of age and older - the group interviewed for the study.

According to the study, 783,000 people surveyed during the pandemic said they had consumed hard liquor in the past week. That number represented an increase of 120,000 from a year earlier.

Likewise, about 743,000 surveyed during the pandemic said they had consumed wine in the past week, up by about 67,000.

Beer remained the most popular alcoholic beverage in the area, but the number of people who said they drank it during the pandemic barely changed. About 25.8 percent of folks in the area said they had recently consumed a beer during the pandemic, a number that was a slight drop from 26 percent the previous year.

Hard cider consumption made the biggest drop during the pandemic. The 147, 436 people who said they had consumed a hard cider in the past week during the pandemic, was down 32 percent from the previous year.

Read more in the Seattle Times.