Scoring Your Perfect Bottle of New Year's Eve Booze Could Be Tricky This Year

New Year's Eve has traditionally been the day to break out your favorite Champagne or your best bottle of booze. But unless you already have one stashed away, in 2021, you may have to settle for something else.

Among the many other shortages the country has been facing over the course of the pandemic, America is currently dealing with an alcohol shortage as we head towards the end of the year. From New York to California, some areas are struggling to get the products they would usually stock.

"Anything you have to import into the country, it's just a chain supply issue," Zac Cochran – manager at Chateau Wine and Spirits in Dublin, Ohio – told WBNS News late last week. "Hennessey's been the big one; it's been out for about three months now."

Aaron Warren – owner of SLO Wine & Beer Co. in San Luis Obispo, California – was facing a similar issue. "We have such a global collection of wines; we feature roughly half of our wines from all over the world, so we are definitely impacted because all of those are sitting off the port of Long Beach," he told CNN last week.

It's not just international shipping that's a problem, either. "Some days, because of COVID, some of these, their drivers test positive, they've got managers driving the trucks to get deliveries," Steve Glamuzina – owner of Georgetown Liquors in Amherst, New York – told WIVB News just before Christmas. "We used to go from one or two days to five days a week now for deliveries, hoping to get whatever we can get our hands on." He said his shop was low on French and Italian wines and foreign liquor.

As a result, though customers will certainly be able to find alcoholic beverages to drink, specific brands or styles may be harder to find. "Tequila, cognacs, the high end rums, all of the good stuff it's very hard to find right now," Corey Kennedy – who owns the Liquor Store Depot in New Orleans, Louisiana – told WWL News late last month. "It's a severe loss because your customers come in and they are expecting you to have certain bottles and you just don't have them."

And yes, that could also apply to most people's go-to New Year's Eve drink: Champagne. "Indeed, there are any number of reports that many top Champagne brands and the Champagne category as a whole are experiencing shortages," Alexander Michas, president and COO of New York-based importer Vintus, told Today recently. "[Some] vendors will have to, as we have already seen, offer alternative sparkling wines."