Beer led the lift. On-premise beer sales climbed 14% in US host cities and 4% nationally, according to the Beer Institute. The concentration was extreme. Fans drank roughly 290,000 stadium beers across the six matches in Philadelphia alone, per FIFA organizers.

This guide breaks down what functional beverages are, why they are selling, what is changing in 2026, and how to get your team ready to move them with confidence.

Ask ten people about Gen Z and alcohol and you will hear the same headline: the kids quit drinking. The truth is more interesting, and a lot more useful if you sell beverages for a living. Americans are drinking at the lowest rate Gallup has recorded in 90 years, and the steepest pullback sits with adults under 35. But the generation the headlines call sober is anything but. Gen Z still drinks. It just drinks less often, more deliberately, and on its own terms, and that singl

Vodka is the best-selling spirit in America, and it is also the one your staff are most likely to sell on autopilot. Someone walks up, asks for "a bottle of vodka," you point at the shelf, they grab the brand they saw in a commercial, and the sale is done. No conversation, no upsell, no reason for them to come back to you instead of the grocery store down the street.