Vodka is declining. It is also forecast to outperform every other major spirits category

Vodka is the largest spirits category by volume in the United States, accounting for approximately 31% of total distilled spirits sales. Globally, it is the second-largest spirits category by value. In 2025, global vodka volumes declined 3% and value declined 1%, according to IWSR’s preliminary 2025 data release published in April 2026. The US market, where the category has been under pressure since 2022, saw the country’s largest vodka brand – Tito’s Handmade Vodka – record its first-ever volume decline in 2024, falling 1.5% to 12 million cases.

Those numbers describe a category that is declining. The WSWA SipSource Forward Forecast, published July 2026, provides the most counterintuitive data point in the current spirits landscape: of the seven major spirits categories tracked, vodka is the only one forecast to outperform the broader spirits market through 2026 and into 2027. It remains in negative territory. But it is declining less than brandy, cognac, rum, and Irish whiskey, and improving relative to its own recent trend.

Understanding why vodka occupies that position – declining but outperforming – is more commercially useful than the top-line decline number alone. The category is not moving uniformly. Price tier, brand positioning, and channel are all producing materially different outcomes within the same category, and the divergence between them has specific implications for how brands operating in the vodka space should think about the rest of 2026 and into 2027.

The state of the category – what the confirmed data shows