The rise of bourbon

Bourbon has had quite the resurgence in recent years and I wanted to explore that a bit deeper. Thankfully, Iowa provides provides their liquor sales data openly. You can find my SQL Server queries on my Github.

We can see from the graph that in Iowa bourbon has had a steady increase in sales since 2019 with Bottled-in-Bond offerings showing the largest gain, so much so, that my beloved Old Grandad Bottled-in-Bond has become rather difficult to find.

In the Straight Bourbon category we see the readily available old stalwarts Jim Beam and Makers Mark occupy the top two spots. What's really interesting is Iowa's own Cedar Ridge Bourbon coming in third. It's pretty amazing to see a small, local distillery show up so high on the list.

Take a look around at the interactive dashboards and see what unique things that you notice.