1 Top Alcohol Stock to Buy Now -- and 1 to Avoid

Sin stocks, such as cigarette makers, alcoholic beverage brewers, and casino operators, have historically outperformed the market. Tobacco and alcohol companies, in particular, have thrived not just by selling products that are both mind-altering and addictive, but by creating high-profit-margin brands with which consumers develop strong relationships. Popular liquor brands like Jack Daniel's whiskey, Smirnoff vodka, or Jose Cuervo tequila, have been staples on bar shelves for generations.

While alcohol is a product with no real substitute, shifting consumer tastes have rocked the industry in recent years, leading to a surge of merger activity, and creating new winners and losers.

The rapidly growing popularity of craft beer -- defined as those beers made by independent brewers that produce 6 million barrels or less a year -- has siphoned market share away from macrobrews like Budweiser, and led to industry giants like Anheuser Busch/InBev (NYSE: BUD) buying up scores of microbreweries, including Wicked Weed Brewing, Karbach Brewing Co., among others. By volume, craft beer sales increased 6.2% last year, though that clip is down from the double-digit percentage growth of previous years. Meanwhile, overall beer sales were flat last year.  

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Source: Fool.com