These days, what's cheap? Internet access, social media, music/podcast/video services, certain games, fast fashion hauls.
An actual night out with friends these days? Not cheap at all. It's a rational economic decision.
Besides the change is probably the same for the better off Gen Z people as well.
If the government took less of a tax cut from these items they would be a little more affordable.
Also, Z's still smoke, but it's in the form of Zyn patches and nicotine bars.
Booze is mostly a women and poor person thing now. And gas, most of the Z's don't seem to drive because their parents always chauffeured them.
(My Z son though will smoke a pipe occasionally, we watched the Russian version of Sherlock Holmes which made him carve an absurdly large pipe which I even took a few puffs of; my nicotine use is at the once yearly level, I'll share a ceremonial cigar and if I'm visiting a third world country I might get a pack of the local cigs)
I assume this is appealing to young or women drinkers?
My Gen Z son is a gearhead and is proud of his '96 Buick. Although he finds "anti-woke" politics attractive, he won't listen to people carping about the price of gas, he thinks the current price is a bargain and even if we got the $400/ton CO2 tax I advocate he says it would be worth it to him to pay $7-$8 a gallon. He gets what a miracle fossil fuels are [1]
I got my driver's license when I was 21 which was slow for my generation (there was the time I borrowed a Cadillac de Ville from a hung over friend to take the driver's test, clipped a curb and failed it, then got back in and drove home) he wasn't in a hurry either. Many of his friends are in their early 20s and still don't drive.