12×75 Spirits Market Report | Week Ending 27 September 2026

The most useful signal in this week’s spirits market is the concentration of price cuts. Tequila is under the clearest pressure in the latest published category readings, but the broader bottle market is remarkably still. Of 278 retrievable bottle histories, 266 finished the week at the same median price at which they started.

Among the twelve that moved, eight fell and four rose. Cazadores Reposado recorded the largest decline, while Nikka Coffey Gin led the gains. Campari and Aviation both became cheaper as Negroni Week brought a fresh round of cocktail marketing into bars and social feeds.

Our reading is that selective promotions and retailer repricing offer a more convincing explanation than a sudden deterioration in demand across spirits. The evidence is strongest on what moved. Pinning down precisely why requires more care.

The category picture: tequila weakens as Scotch holds firmer

Tequila is the clear laggard

Change (%)

Source: 12×75 index pages. Published one-week changes; these are not complete 21 to 27 September returns.

The Tequila 50 fell 1.30% over the latest published seven-day window. Scotch gained 0.61%, American whiskey rose 0.28%, and gin and vodka were almost flat.

Promotional participation helps explain the shape of that market. The share of tequila bottles on offer at one or more shops increased from 28% to 34%. American whiskey also saw more bottles on promotion, even as its aggregate index edged higher. Scotch moved in the opposite direction: prices rose while promotional participation eased.

This is evidence of different pricing conditions across categories, rather than a universal discount cycle. It also shows why the number of offers matters alongside the headline price index. A bottle can be discounted at one retailer without shifting its median across the wider sample.

More offers in four of the five categories

Bottles on offer at one or more shops (%), scale 0 to 40

Source: 12×75. Share of bottles discounted at at least one shop, according to the site’s recent-price comparison. This measures promotional breadth, not discount depth or sales volumes.

Cazadores: a price cut does not automatically mean a struggling brand

Cazadores Reposado fell from $26.99 to $24.99 between 20 and 27 September, a 7.41% reduction. The lower median appeared on 24 September and remained in place at the week’s endpoint. Both endpoint readings drew on 19 shops.

A simple demand-collapse explanation sits awkwardly with the wider evidence. Shanken News Daily’s 18 September retail report identified Cazadores among tequila’s recent growth brands, using a measurement period ending 5 September. That is earlier context, rather than proof of sales performance during the week under review, but it matters.

Discounting can support a growing brand by improving its position on the shelf. The observable move is consistent with a promotion or competitive price reset. We have not established a dated offer at the tracked retailers that accounts for the entire decline, so this remains the leading explanation rather than a confirmed cause.

Negroni Week provides the clearest promotional connection

Aviation American Gin fell 3.57%, from $27.99 to $26.99. Campari declined 3.08%, from $32.50 to $31.50. Both lower medians appeared on 22 September.

The timing is notable. Negroni Week ran from 21 to 27 September, with Campari, Aviation and Bulldog among its partners. On 21 September, Campari announced its Alan Cumming Stay Bitter campaign, including a cocktail receipt rebate of up to $15 in selected US markets.

That is a credible promotional backdrop for two brands used in the same drink. However, a rebate on a cocktail is not a discount on a retail bottle. The campaign and the price changes align; retailer-level offer records would be needed to demonstrate that one caused the other.

Every observable weekly bottle mover

Change (%)

Source: 278 linked 12×75 bottle histories. Twelve medians changed and 266 were unchanged. Median changes are distinct from the matched-shop calculations used in the indices.

The other movers: small adjustments, limited evidence of a common cause

Teremana Reposado fell 2.83%, from $34.99 to $34.00. The tequila category’s heavier promotional activity supplies a plausible backdrop, but no dated US bottle offer was verified that explains this specific move. Overseas travel-retail campaigns would be a weak basis for explaining domestic US shop prices.

Koval Dry Gin fell 2.38%, from $41.99 to $40.99. An early-September California distribution announcement brought Koval to LibDib Gold and highlighted its distributor markup structure. Improved distribution economics could influence shelf prices, but there is no demonstrated link between that arrangement and the shops behind this median.

Elijah Craig Small Batch and Evan Williams Black fell 1.85% and 1.76%, respectively. Their reductions appeared on the same day, 22 September, which is consistent with a shared promotion calendar or coincident retailer repricing. Heaven Hill’s earlier Kentucky Wildcats partnership confirms marketing support for both brands, but does not document a retail discount.

Casamigos Blanco slipped 0.98%, a $0.49 median reduction. Its margarita-related promotional activity concerns a different format, so it does not establish why the core Blanco bottle became cheaper. Routine retailer repricing remains a plausible but unconfirmed explanation.

On the rising side, Nikka Coffey Gin gained 2.22%, Angel’s Envy Port Finished Bourbon added 1.18%, and Four Roses Bourbon rose 1.11%. No verified product-specific supply shock explains these increases. Larceny Small Batch edged up 0.07%, effectively flat. September limited releases and brand activations concern different products; they should not be treated as proof of scarcity or stronger demand for the core bottles.

Larceny’s 0.07% increase amounts to two cents. Its endpoint shop count fell from 17 to 16, making a change in sample composition at least as plausible as a meaningful shift in pricing power.

The owner indices show modest, uneven pressure

Brown-Forman and Bacardi lead the available owner-index readings, while William Grant & Sons, Heaven Hill and Campari Group sit at the bottom. The moves are small, and the available period runs only from 20 to 24 September.

Most priced portfolios edged lower

Change (%)

Source: 12×75 owner indices, based at 100 on 20 September. Coverage ranges from 62.7% to 86.1% of portfolio weight. These are retail price indices, not equity returns or measures of company revenue.

Bacardi’s published mover panel shows gains in Grey Goose Citron and Angel’s Envy offsetting Cazadores weakness. Brown-Forman benefits from firmer El Jimador readings. William Grant’s panel shows weakness across several brands, including Famous Grouse, Milagro, Reyka and Monkey Shoulder.

These comparisons need restraint. The portfolios have different category mixes and incomplete pricing coverage. Their published changes also use a different method and period from the bottle-median chart above. They reveal where shelf-price pressure is appearing within the priced sample, rather than which company is commercially winning the week.

Currency and cultural attention add context

The Mexican peso’s dollar value fell approximately 2.94% between 18 and 25 September, calculated from Banque de France reference rates and the earlier comparison table. That direction is favourable for dollar-based Mexican sourcing over time.

It is not a same-week explanation for a 7.41% bottle-price cut. Stock already sitting in US shops was purchased earlier, while contracts, hedging and distribution margins delay or dilute currency effects. Assigning a precise share of the Cazadores decline to FX would go beyond the evidence.

Marketing visibility is equally easy to overinterpret. Lunazul’s Luar collaboration at New York Fashion Week and sponsored Hypebeast coverage establish active cultural marketing close to the period. They do not establish organic virality, conversion or a retail-price effect.

Public forum discussion also reflected Negroni Week, but individual posts are not a representative demand survey. Google Trends data could not be retrieved for this edition, and the embedded Lunazul Instagram reel could not be independently inspected. No search-interest or social-engagement uplift is claimed.

A one-day coverage drop deserves attention

The sharpest movement in the underlying data was in the number of reported shop observations. Across the retrieved histories, that total fell from 4,022 on 24 September to 975 on 25 September, then returned to 4,022 the next day.

A temporary loss of observations can distort daily prices

25 September: 975 observations, −75.8% in one day

Bottle-shop observations

Source: summed shop counts across 278 histories. Counts represent bottle-shop observations, not unique retailers. On 25 September, 256 bottles have a recorded observation versus 278 on the surrounding days. The cause of the contraction is unverified.

Grey Goose Citron illustrates the risk. Its median rose from $30.99 across 14 shops to $34.99 across three shops, then returned to $30.99 as the sample recovered. That pattern can arise because the observed shop mix changes, without any shop increasing its own price.

The weekly bottle comparison uses 20 and 27 September, avoiding that particular day. It still cannot guarantee identical retailer samples at both endpoints. The coverage contraction should be investigated before using daily spikes as evidence of sudden demand, shortages or wider inflation.

What the 12×75 Spirits Market Report is watching next

The immediate question is whether the discounts persist. A rebound in Campari and Aviation after Negroni Week would strengthen the promotional explanation. A sustained lower Cazadores median would point towards a more durable shelf-price reset, although dated retailer offers would still be needed to establish the mechanism.

For now, the market looks selectively competitive. Tequila has the clearest downward pressure, bourbon is mixed, and most observable bottle medians are unchanged. The next edition should test those patterns against refreshed indices and stable shop coverage, rather than assume every price change has a dramatic brand story behind it.

About the data

This edition reviews 21 to 27 September 2026 using 20 September as the starting bottle-price observation. It covers all five category and eleven owner indices available on 12×75. Published category returns cover 17 to 24 September; owner returns cover 20 to 24 September. Full-week bottle changes compare published US-dollar medians on 20 and 27 September. All data were captured on 30 September.

There were 278 linked bottle histories with both endpoints, plus 42 named constituents without a linked public history. Those 42 are excluded from the weekly breadth calculation, not counted as flat. Unchanged medians do not imply unchanged prices at every shop. The indices’ matched-shop methodology is distinct from a comparison of medians. Causal interpretations are analytical judgements, not demonstrated attribution.

Price source: 12×75 indices and linked bottle histories. Supporting sources are linked alongside the relevant analysis. The complete extracted dataset and original research text are available below for readers who want to inspect the underlying work.

Download supporting research & data