Getting ready to do my New Year’s shopping (much preferred to Christmas shopping, in my opinion), I came across the Ohio Liquor Sales Report.
Some (possibly) interesting observations:
Liquor sales (in gallons) are up 2% year to date — Drink up, it’s a recession?
But liquor sales (in gallons) are down 3% in the first half of December
The most popular liquor (by volume) is the utterly disgusting Kamchatka (Reviewed here by a twelve year old)
Next most popular are Jack, Bacardi, Crown Royal, and The Cap’n. Ohio seems to like the dark spirits. (This may be a seasonal thing - most dark liquors were more popular in December than November, while most light liquors became less popular).
Gin is not popular. The two best-selling brands (Seagrams and Tanqueray) combined sold fewer gallons than Jager.
The only flavored spirit among the gallonage leaders was Three Olives - Cherry.. rather strange, I would have expected a Smirnoff or Bacardi flavor to do well (perhaps the wide range of flavor options keeps any one flavor from selling particularly well).
I think I need to try Diesel 153 (with Everclear categorized only as “Alcohol”).
In the super-premium scotch category - Macallen 18 and Glenlivet 18 outsell the more expensive Johnny Walker Blue, but Blue is much more popular than the 25 year varieties.
In the uber-premium category - people actually buy Remy Louis XIII cognac! It’s $1957.60 (vs. $1744.20 wholesale), and four bottles were purchased (one in Columbus, three in Massilon).
Nearly 1000 bottles of Triple Sec were purchased at retail, never to be finished (going to write soon about my theory of never ending Liqueurs).
Jagermeister is purchased almost entirely wholesale - I guess “JAGERBOMBS” has less appeal in the comfort of your own home.
My favorite liquor, Hangar One, is not too popular in Ohio — less than 80 bottles sold in the first half of December (and the flavored versions were even less popular). It does seem to have distribution, the whole in the wall liquor store a mile from my house had it.
