818 Tequila, the brand founded by Kendall Jenner in 2021, posted 40% volume growth in 2024 while the broader tequila category grew just 2%, according to figures the company attributed to Nielsen and IRI data, even as Gallup measured record low US drinking rates.
The two data points landed in the same news cycle. Gallup's 2025 Consumption Habits survey found that 54% of US adults said they drink alcohol, the lowest share Gallup has recorded since it began tracking the question in 1939, and that reading held steady into 2026. Jenner's brand, meanwhile, has spent the past two years adding retail doors, cutting its blanco's price and, in April 2026, taking on a strategic investment from Sazerac Company.
What the growth numbers actually show
818 Spirits launched in May 2021 with blanco, reposado and añejo expressions and is majority run by president and chief operating officer Mike Novy, a former Constellation Brands executive. In an interview with Food Dive, Novy pointed to Nielsen and IRI figures showing the brand grew 65% in January 2024 against 9% growth for the tequila category overall, a gap he characterized as seven times the market rate. By November 2024, according to Fast Company's reporting, the brand's year over year volume growth measured 41%, versus category growth it put at roughly 14 times slower. Food Dive separately reported that 818's products were stocked in about 13,000 of the 300,000 licensed alcohol retail channels in the US as of spring 2024, a number Novy said the company was working to expand.
Some of that growth traces to a pricing decision. Fast Company reported that 818 cut its blanco from 39.99 dollars to 29.99 dollars in late 2023, a move that nearly doubled sales of that product by mid-2024 and helped push the brand to 10th best selling tequila in the US, within the over 24 dollar price segment, by that July. Trade outlet Shanken News Daily reported in March 2025 that reposado, not blanco, had become the faster-accelerating line within the portfolio as consumer interest in lightly aged tequila rose.
The Sazerac investment
Inc reported in April 2026 that 818 Tequila secured a strategic investment from Sazerac Company, a more than 400 year old, family owned spirits business now in its fourth generation of ownership. Under the arrangement, Sazerac becomes the exclusive sales and distribution partner for 818 Tequila in the United States. The companies did not disclose the size of the investment, according to Inc's reporting. Jenner told the outlet the company has grown as a small team and that the goal now is to scale distribution, while 818 president Lanay Jacobs said the plan is to widen wholesale accounts and add SKUs at stores that already carry the brand, rather than launch new products.
What Gallup's drinking data found
Gallup's Consumption Habits survey, conducted by telephone in July, found the share of US adults who say they drink alcohol fell from 62% in 2023 to 58% in 2024 to 54% in 2025, before holding at 54% in 2026, according to Gallup's published results. That is the lowest figure in a trend dating to 1939 and one point under the prior low of 55%, recorded in 1958. Gallup also reported that the average number of drinks consumed per week by Americans who drink fell to 2.8, down from 3.8 a year earlier and well below the 5.1 drink weekly peak Gallup recorded in 2003. Separately, Axios reported that Gallup found drinking among adults under 35 fell nine percentage points since 2023, from 59% to 50%. Gallup's Lydia Saad has said the decline does not appear to reflect a shift toward other substances such as recreational marijuana.