If you’ve ever wondered whether your at-home cocktail of choice is modern or momish, well, POC Metrics has your answer. The consumer analytics company has put together this nifty data visualization to show you the most popular cocktails, spirits, and ingredients by state during the 2015 holiday season.
Recently we discovered that the Moscow Mule is in a dead heat with the margarita in competition for the most-popular at-home drink, replacing the Cosmopolitan as the most popular vodka cocktail. I’m disappointed to tell you that the other three most popular vodka drinks in the country during the holiday season are Sex on the Beach, Long Island Iced Tea, and something called Rainbow Dee-Lite, which apparently is a rainbow-colored cocktail made with raspberry syrup, orange and pineapple juices, vodka, and Blue Curacao.
Surprisingly, spiked egg nog, hot toddies, and anything with pumpkin spice did not feature highly on any list. Vodka remains the most popular ingredient while almond milk was the least popular, right below celery bitters.
The results are based on data from 50,000 users of the Perfect Drink Smart-Bartending Platform, (If you’re not familiar, the platform helps users measure perfectly portioned cocktails from its stash of recipes or user-uploaded ones.)
Given the explosion of craft cocktail bars, speakeasies, and other places to posture with a martini glass in hand, I’m surprised that people’s at-home drinks of choice are so uncreative. Why the disparity between what people drink at home and what they drink out?
It all comes down to ingredients and ideas. There’s clearly room for a better cocktail discovery system, perhaps with recipes from bartenders and mixologists, so that people can step outside the Long Island Iced Tea comfort zone without investing in tons of mixers to accompany their vodka. How about taking the vodka-lime idea from a Moscow Mule and instead making a Salty Dog (add grapefruit juice), a Twister (add soda), or to be really retro, a Sea Breeze (add grapefruit and cranberry juices)? The power of suggestion would go a long way here.
Liquor stores can also capitalize on POC’s data to group mixers with the spirits that make the most sense by state, increasing sales with very little extra effort.
And perhaps most obviously, someone needs to start offering a premade version of some of these cocktails that doesn’t “taste like disappointment.”
