Sales of American booze have “fallen off a cliff” for one Calgary wine store owner, but luckily for the Kensington Wine Market, it’s a pretty shallow cliff.
After it was confirmed that Alberta Gaming, Liquor, and Cannabis (AGLC) will resume selling American liquor products after a three-month pause, Kensington Wine Market owner Andrew Ferguson said that they never actually went away.
“They are bringing it back but they’re bringing it back with a tariff on it,“ he said. ”I think it might surprise people in Alberta, but stores and restaurants have not been prevented from buying American products for the past three months -- but I think like most, we’ve seen a massive decrease in demand for it.”
On Friday, the AGLC announced it will “resume accepting liquor products from the United States, effective immediately,” at the direction of the provincial government.
This will affect all liquor products registered with the AGLC and declared to Canada Border Services Agency.
Products that were shipped from the U.S. after March 4 will continue to be subject to a surtax of 25 per cent of the invoice price, the AGLC added.
“I think when it all went down, I think a lot of people thought, ‘oh, you’re going to just stop selling this stuff immediately,’” Ferguson said, “but they don’t realize that before a bottle of bourbon or wine or Canadian whisky or whatever gets delivered to our stores, we have to pay for it.
“So we already own that stuff -- so the idea that we aren’t going to sell something that we’ve already paid for is a bit tough (to swallow),” he said.
What really changed, he said, was the appetite among customers for made-in-the-U.S.A. booze.
“It’s a big drop in demand,” he said. “The natural depletion of a case of wine – like maybe we’ll sell through in about two or three weeks -- but we’ve had some where we haven’t even sold (through) an American case in three months."
Ferguson said U.S. liquor generally amounts to around 10 per cent of his sales, but that has gone down since Trump’s tariffs were announced.
“There are still people buying it (U.S. alcohol) and we don’t take a place of judgement on it – (but) we’ve (also) got lots of alternatives for them,“ he said. ”I’d say by and large the bigger response has been ‘I want a bottle of whisky for cocktails or I want a bottle of wine. I don’t want an American product.’"
“By and large, the disproportionate response has been more the other way,” he added.
“And for those people that want to continue to purchase their favourite American products, we still carry a lot of them but not as many as we might have had three months ago.”
Support Canadian producers
The initial decision was made to support Canadian producers in the wake of U.S. tariffs, Premier Danielle Smith said in March.
“If the Americans aren’t going to buy products from our Canadian companies, we have to,” the premier said.
“That means we should be buying more Canadian beer, more Canadian spirits and more Canadian wine. And so that’s the reality of what we’re facing.”
Ferguson said there was plenty of alternatives to American liquor.
“Whether it’s wine or especially beer here in Alberta, or spirits, there’s a lot of great alternatives,” he said. “So if you want an alternative to bourbon, we’ve got alternatives to bourbon here.
“We’ve got great wines, not only from Canada but other countries with which we have a fair trading relationship.”
Mark Freeland, who owns Calgary’s Two Rivers Distillery, said the three-month pause didn’t change much for his business.
“It didn’t really make a huge difference,” Freeland said. “To be quite honest, there was still so much stock left up at the central warehouse in St. Albert that there wasn’t a chance of it to get sold through. So, yeah, we didn’t see a huge, a huge difference.”
Lifting restrictions
In a statement Friday night, Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Dale Nally said the government lifting restrictions on the purchase of U.S. alcohol and video lottery terminals signals a “renewed commitment to open and fair trade with our largest partner.”
“The decision sets the stage for more constructive negotiations ahead of a Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement renewal, potentially leading to increased trade opportunities and economic growth for Alberta,” Nally added.
Ferguson said the lack of clarity and unpredictability of the supply chain created by Trump’s tariffs is taking a toll on consumer habits.
“Maybe they (the UCP) know something we don’t,” he said, “that there’s a trade deal that’s coming soon between Canada and the U.S. and this is a way to offer a bit of a carrot.
“What we’ve seen overall,” he added “(is that) consumer demand is down, consumers are worried about their money -- and so the longer this drags on, the harder it’s going to be on retail.”
Freeland said he wants the government to stop trying to help.
“Anytime the government gets involved in anything, it’s going to be bad,” he said. “So just let let the chips fall where they may, and let the guys that are making good stuff get it out there, and the guys that aren’t shouldn’t be protected for it.”
He said made-in-Alberta booze can hold its own against anyone’s.
“There’s a lot of really, really good breweries and distilleries and wineries in in this province,” he said. “Our distilleries won awards internationally for our gins and for our whiskys as well.
So, you know, make a night of it. Go. Go visit a distillery. Hang out. It’s pretty cool to have a cocktail that’s made 20 feet away from you -- there’s no other bars that you can go to that have that!"
For more about Two Rivers Distillery, go here.
For more about the Kensington Wine Market, go here.
With files from CTV’s Tyler Barrow, Steven Dyer and Kevin Green
