Nipping Alcohol or Sipping Coffee: Two Tales of Beverages and Their Industrial Growth in the National Cultural Setting

ABSTRACT As global consumption patterns shift, coffee is rising as a productivity‐linked stimulant while alcohol is declining amid public health and cultural transformations. This study tests the hypothesis that coffee consumption substitutes for alcohol consumption and explores how national culture moderates this relationship. At the substitution effect level, we used the competing logic between two beverages. At the moderation level, we used cultural values as contingencies. Using a robust cross‐national dataset of alcohol consumption as the outcome and coffee consumption as the predictor in 112 countries, we used multilevel analysis for the four cultural dimensions: Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, and Uncertainty Avoidance. The findings show that the cultural moderators strongly change the relationship between coffee and alcohol consumption levels. The interaction coefficients are significant between models, nested levels, and after reverse causality inclusion. Although the coefficient size and direction of the coefficients vary, the moderation effect of culture remains robust. These results reveal that the global contraction of alcohol consumption is not simply a function of rising coffee demand in universal patterns but is filtered through culturally embedded norms. The findings position national culture as a key institutional layer in shaping industry trajectories and consumer substitution effects, offering novel implications for international economics, public health policy, and cross‐cultural market strategies.