Russia’s Vodka Sales Fell 0.5% Through September

Retail vodka sales in Russia fell slightly further in the first nine months of 2026, while sales of liqueurs and vodka-based prepared drinks continued to grow at a much faster pace, according to figures attributed by Russian news agencies to the federal alcohol and tobacco control body Rosalkogoltabakkontrol.

Vodka sales totaled 53.61 million decaliters from January through September, down 0.5% from the same period a year earlier, according to PRIME and Interfax reports published on Oct. 16. In the same nine-month period, the Russian category described by the agencies as liqueurs and vodka preparations rose 10.8% to 14.85 million decaliters. A decaliter equals 10 liters.

The new data show a modest deterioration from the trend reported a month earlier. Through January-August, vodka sales had been down 0.1% year over year, while liqueurs and vodka preparations had been up 11%, according to Interfax data published on Sept. 15. After September was added to the cumulative total, the decline in vodka worsened by 0.4 percentage points and the growth rate for liqueurs and prepared vodka drinks slowed by 0.2 percentage points. Those changes refer to the cumulative rates for the January-September period compared with January-August, not to standalone September sales.

The figures point to a continued divergence inside Russia’s spirits market. Vodka remains by far the larger category by volume, but its retail sales have been edging lower, while adjacent categories that include flavored, mixed, or prepared spirits products have continued to expand. The latest update suggests that this split remained in place through the end of the third quarter and that vodka’s position weakened slightly further as the period extended into September.

Neither PRIME nor Interfax reported retail revenue, prices, or average selling values for the categories. That means the data show changes in physical sales volumes only and do not indicate whether the shift was driven by price changes, promotions, income pressures, taxation, product mix, or other market factors. The figures also do not prove that consumers are directly replacing vodka with liqueurs or prepared vodka drinks on a one-for-one basis.

Rosalkogoltabakkontrol is the Russian federal authority that oversees alcohol and tobacco control. The statistics cited by the agencies were attributed to that body. The official portal was not accessible for independent review, so the reported numbers could not be directly verified from the primary publication at the time of reporting.

The data set in this account excludes brandy volumes because of discrepancies between published reports, making that category unsuitable for a clean comparison. The available agency reports focused attention instead on the contrast between vodka and the fast-growing group of liqueurs and vodka preparations.

Measured in absolute terms, vodka still accounted for a much larger retail volume than the expanding liqueur and prepared-drink segment. Even so, the gap in growth rates remained wide. A 0.5% decline for vodka on a base of 53.61 million decaliters means the category broadly held near last year’s level but moved lower at the margin. By contrast, a 10.8% increase for liqueurs and vodka preparations lifted that segment to 14.85 million decaliters, underscoring stronger consumer demand within that part of the spirits market.

The month-to-month direction inside the nine-month total cannot be determined from the cumulative figures alone. What can be said from the published numbers is narrower and more precise: after the inclusion of September, vodka’s year-over-year decline became somewhat steeper than it had been through August, and the growth rate for liqueurs and vodka-based preparations eased slightly but remained strong.

The latest release therefore extends a pattern that Russian agencies have been reporting for several months. In retail volume terms, vodka sales in Russia continued to soften modestly in January-September 2026, while liqueurs and prepared vodka drinks kept posting double-digit growth, even with a slight slowdown from the pace seen through August.