Municipal liquor sales down in 2025
Economy, trends have impact on sales, Luther says
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MARSHALL -- Last year, sales were down a little at Marshall's municipal liquor store, Tall Grass Liquor manager Eric Luther said this week.
In an annual report to the Marshall City Council, Luther said overall sales in 2025 were at around $7.19 million, a decrease of about $228,000 from 2024.
Luther said it's possible that trend will continue.
"We've seen a national trend of decreased liquor consumption with the Gen Z age group, along with unstable economic conditions which contribute to this decrease," Luther told city council members.
However, Luther said in spite of the decrease in sales, Tall Grass Liquor still had a slight increase in income in 2025. The store's income before transfers was about $1.25 million, an increase of $13,898 compared to 2024.
"We've seen a steady increase in yearly profit, to our current level in 2025," he said.
In 2025, the liquor store contributed $200,000 to the city's debt service fund, and $400,000 to the city's general fund, Luther said.
Beer and spirits made up the majority of sales at the liquor store in 2025. Beer sales accounted for about $3 million, or 42% of overall sales that year, Luther said. Sales of liquor and spirits had gone up slightly from previous years.
"A lot of that is probably due to ready-to-drink (cocktails)," Luther said. "The vodka-based ready-to-drinks are kind of the new trend and craze. It's probably been there for about two or three years now."
While beer brought in the most sale dollars overall, spirits and THC products brought in a higher percentage of gross profits.
"You can see spirits and THC are our two main drivers that pace the total store gross profit," Luther said. "So, strategic purchasing along with a focus on product cost and pricing have contributed to a consistently higher gross profit margin again in 2025."
"Overall, the combined gross profit in 2025 was about 30%, which is a good number," Luther said.
Luther said there were some trends in sales at Tall Grass over the past year. In addition to ready-to-drink cocktails, sales of both spirits and non-alcoholic beers and wines grew in 2025. Minnesota-brewed craft beers were also popular with customers, he said.
Tall Grass Liquor's new online ordering platform gained users in 2025, Luther said. About $50,000 was brought in from the online sales platform last year.
In the first six months of this year, sales and customer counts at Tall Grass were down more than 3% from 2025, Luther said. He factored those trends into the liquor store's proposed 2027 budget, where estimated liquor sales and cost of goods sold at a were at a 3% decrease from 2026.
Luther said another consideration for the liquor store in 2027 will be uncertainties over a possible federal ban of hemp-based THC products. The ban is scheduled to take effect in November.
"We have chosen not to include this category in sales and profit for this coming year," Luther said. "Many of us in Minnesota - retailers, brewers, consumers - hope this can be avoided. And they're doing some different things, working on it, and they've extended it a little bit here. So, we'll see where it lands. But that's kind of a tough scenario."