Booze blues: Alternative drinks challenge wine, beer

Washington economist Mike Veseth says hard seltzers are disrupting the wine and beer industries the way smart phones upended board games. It’s not that traditional beverages like wine and beer are going away, notes Veseth, editor of The Wine Economist and professor emeritus at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. But wine, like Monopoly, is becoming smaller and filling a niche.