How this works
Market Atlas shows which kinds of people go with each spirits category in Iowa, and where those people live across the US.
How the dollars are made
Take Iowa’s 99 counties. Line them up on one Census measure, say the share of professional jobs, and find the counties that hold the quarter of Iowa’s adults where that share is highest, and the quarter where it is lowest. In each of those two groups, take bourbon’s share of all spirits dollars and write it as dollars of every $100: $11.41 and $7.47, against $9.61 for Iowa overall.
The working figures behind those dollars are index numbers: 119 and 78, where 100 is bourbon’s usual Iowa share. The pages show the dollars.
Solid, early signal and ranked
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Firm / Solid | A clear pattern across Iowa’s 99 counties once county size and density are allowed for, and the category’s group holds across Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. |
| Early signal | A weaker pattern, or one Pennsylvania does not confirm. A lead, not a finding. In the lean charts and the explorer, dotted outlines mark the least steady ones. |
| Ranked | Places are ranked only for the 8 spirits groups and the 24 subcategories whose model fits Iowa well and whose group holds in Pennsylvania. Lists say “Based on Iowa; its group checked in Pennsylvania” (a group: “Checked in Pennsylvania”). Every other category shows where its matching people live, from the Census only, with no rank numbers. |
How places are ranked
For each ranked category, a model is fitted to Iowa’s 99 counties: which public Census measures go with the category taking a bigger share of a county’s spirits dollars. Every US state and metro area is then scored on the same measures. A place ranks high when its people look like the Iowa counties where the category’s sales make up a bigger share.
So “5th of 387 metros” means four metros’ people match that pattern more closely, and 382 less closely. A tie prints as “tied 5th”. It is not a sales figure, and no sales outside Iowa are used. Pointing at a rank shows the same standing as a share, for example “ahead of 99.0% of metros”.
Beyond what Iowa covers
Some US places have more of a measure than any Iowa county, so the Iowa model has never seen anything like them. Their standing is a best estimate: a hollow dot on the maps, and one sentence above any list where they appear.
What is not here
No brands. No sales forecast. None of your data. No account, no cookies: nothing you pick is saved, and the explorer keeps its state in the page address only. Visits are counted in daily totals from the server’s request log.
What this rests on
- Iowa county sales by category, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 (99 counties).
- Pennsylvania county sales by category group, Jul 2024 to Jun 2025 (67 counties), as the check.
- Census ACS 2024 5-year, for every state and metro area.
An association between places, not a cause or a sales forecast. Only Census measures of age, sex, income, earnings, education, college enrolment, jobs, households, housing, density and poverty are used.
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