2024 was a rough ride for the adult beverage industry. Alcohol sales were down for a variety reasons: lower demand following distributor inventory and consumer pantry build ups from the pandemic; shifting consumer preferences—particularly in the youngest of LDA consumers—away from alcohol to non-alcoholic and/or new intoxicating adult beverage categories like Delta-9 THC drinks, and fallout from a robust scientific and societal debate about the health benefits and risks associated with moderate alcohol consumption. Consumers bought less by volume, but spent more per SKU on this smaller set, in essence trading up price-and-quality-wise and creating more elevated occasions and experiences for their imbibing. All these factors made 2024 even more competitive for brands and especially in one of the key arenas for capturing consumer attention and interest, packaging.
At BevTest, we review around five thousand adult beverage brands a year. We see a lot of packaging and we’ve been carefully reviewing and evaluating packaging in our World Packaging Competition every December for the past 23 years.
All the packages submitted by brands and their designers for our 2025 competition were closely analyzed and ranked by our panel of retail buyers, designers and industry experts. In addition to the stately, luxurious packaging of super-to-ultra premium wines and spirits, we saw lots of fun and very creative designs to entice consumers—especially with hand-made and hand-detailed elements, and even an innovative chill-preserving wine shipper. Our 2025 review was also a milestone with the first appearance of Delta-9 THC beverages in the winner’s circle.
The age-old adage that you only have one chance to make a first impression certainly applies to drinks brands and we saw that smart players made the extra effort and investment to make their packaging stand out in a tighter and more challenging 2025 adult beverage market. What follows in our 2025 BevTest Packaging Compendium are the best of category winners and runners up for bottle, label, gift box, carrier, and packaging series design, followed by lists by medal of other winners. We thank all of the brand participants and their designers and wish them much success in 2025.
Click here to view the 2025 BevTest Packaging Compendium.
