California’s drinking habits have swung back and forth constantly over the past century, but they appear to have undergone a particularly dramatic shift in the last couple of years, according to a trove of state tax data analyzed by the Chronicle.

Recently, California has experienced something of a wine-and-beer drought. In the 2024 fiscal year, from July 2023 to June 2024, the per capita rate of wine consumption hit a 30-year low, according to the data, while beer consumption dipped to a rate not seen since 1965.

Spirits consumption, meanwhile, in 2023 and 2024 reached its highest rate since the mid-’80s, with the average Californian drinking 2 gallons of liquor each year — but not because of the likes of whiskey, gin and vodka. The growth of spirits is due in large part to the popularity of the “ready to drink” category, which includes canned cocktails like High Noon.

This increased spirits drinking was enough to tip California’s overall alcohol intake to a higher rate than it was pre-pandemic, despite the lower levels of wine and beer consumption. These numbers seem to complicate the California wine industry’s perception that people aren’t drinking as much as they used to. In fact, the data here suggests that people may just be drinking differently.