Let's drink to gas drillers, with sake, too
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You can learn a lot about a person by pouring a drink. You can learn even more by poring over what they drink.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, though under siege longer than the Red Army in Leningrad, remains a resolute marketeer of its reds, whites and booze. Its glossy "Retail Year in Review" is a treasure trove of tippling trivia and swigging statistics, and I keep going back for another round.
Where to begin?
• To see where sales are up, follow the gas-drilling trucks. LCB sales were up almost 12 percent in Bradford County and more than 9 percent in Tioga County in the retail year ending last June. No counties had higher upticks (and maybe up-hics) than these neighboring counties in Pennsylvania's northern tier, and it's no coincidence that each has hundreds of Marcellus Shale wells. Seventeen of the 20 counties with the highest percentage increases in liquor sales have Marcellus wells.
I've suggested this before, but if nobody has done it yet (and I have a cousin-in-law who dreams of doing so), somebody ought to open a bar called Frackers.
• Vodka outsells every other spirit in Pennsylvania. That's also true in Allegheny County, but the region that launched the Whiskey Rebellion hasn't entirely forgotten its roots. The lip-smacking liquid legacy of our Scots-Irish ancestors still flows most freely here. No other county dropped more money on whiskey than Allegheny ($29.5 million), and Greene County is where it represents the highest percentage of sales (29 percent).
• That said, Pittsburgh isn't just a shot-and-beer town anymore. No county sells more table wine than Allegheny (almost $82 million worth), and Pittsburghers go for box wine the way they used to go for box springs at the Kaufmann's warehouse sales. Allegheny County bought $9.3 million worth of box wine, and Philadelphia only $5 million.
• Don't think that's because Philadelphians are too sophisticated for cheap wine. Seven of the 12 stores with the lowest average price per transaction are in that city.
• Football teams, whiskey and wine aren't the only pastimes separating Pittsburgh from Philadelphia. They buy a lot more brandy, cognac, dessert wine and gin out east, and Pittsburghers -- believe it or not -- buy a lot more sake. We bought only $31,700 worth of the rice-based grog, but that was almost twice as much as Philadelphia. I have no idea why.
First Published February 23, 2012 12:00 am
