Discus: Spirits Gained Share in 2003

The Distilled Spirits Council (Discus), the trade group for the US liquor industry, is forecasting 2003 liquor dollar sales to be up 5.9% to $13.95 billion from $13.17 billion last year, with volume up 3%. Compare that to a beer industry which is likely to be flat to down 1% by year end 2003, and it becomes apparent that liquor has gained some share of gullet.Discus estimates that spirits will gain 0.7 points of share while beer has lost 1.1