Dollar sales jumped to $2.1B in the latest week ended April 4 from $1.98billion a week earlier, reflecting a +6.8% week-over-week) increase as Spring and consumers prepped for Easter gatherings, NIQ reports..

While the week-over-week figures were nice, the four weeks ended April 4still trailed the year-earlier levels, with only Prepared Cocktails showing growth, rising 6% while case volume rose 1.2%.

Beer and wine are approaching stability, NIQ said. Wine's sales were off only 1.5% and volume was 2% from the prior period. NIQ said this was "much improved against perfomance in the prior period. Beer continued to outperform other traditional categories, as dollar sales fell by -0.1% and volume declined -1.6%.

Overall performance indicates improvement across the industry, NIQ said, primarily focused in Beer with potential stability in
Wine, while Spirits navigates its ongoing position as the loss leader.

But even Spirits showed growth on a week-over-week basis of 5.5%, despite declines in its top categories of Whiskies (-5.4% in value, -5.9% in volume). Vodka (-3.6%/-3.2%) and Tequila (-3.1%/+0.5%)

All the while, Prepared Cocktails sees its positive trends intensifying as evolving consumer behaviors benefit the pre-mixed cocktail space more than any other category.

Non-Alc Spirits maintain strength, up +41.7% in dollar sales and
+68.7% in volume. The All Other segment saw losses, down -5.2% in dollar sales and -4.5% in volume, driven largely
by Brandy and Cognac underperformance.

Ohio (+2.4%), Michigan (+1.4%) and California (+ 0.5) showed positive dollar sales gains, while Florida had the biggest drop in sales, falling 4.4%

Only California paired volume growth (+3.8%) with dollar sales growth. In terms of volume declines, Florida saw the laregest drop at -5.6%.