All categories/Whiskey/Who buys bourbon?
Bourbon takes a bigger share of spirits sales where professional jobs are most common: about 1.5 times as much in Iowa.
Solid: seen across Iowa’s 99 counties; whiskey checked in Pennsylvania’s 67.
How to read this
Ranked by how closely each place’s people match the Iowa counties where bourbon sales make up a bigger share of spirits sales. Not a sales figure.
Places: Based on Iowa; its group checked in Pennsylvania.
A hollow dot on the map is a place unlike any Iowa county; its rank is a best estimate.
The dollars: Bourbon’s share of spirits dollars in the Iowa counties that hold the top and the bottom quarter of adults on the measure, written as dollars of every $100.
An association between places, not a cause or a sales forecast.
Of every $100 spent on spirits
Of every $100 spent on spirits in Iowa, what goes to bourbon
Who are these two groups?
Most professional jobs: the 5 Iowa counties that hold the quarter of adults where professional jobs are most common, 45.1% or more, among them Polk, Johnson and Dallas. Fewest professional jobs: the 39 counties at 33.7% or less.
Other people bourbon goes with, and against
where the measure is lowestwhere highestIowa overall $9.61$ of every $100, $7 to $12
+ 20 more
+ 14 more
Tap a row: the dollars, the list and the map follow.
Where bourbon fits, of the 44 US metro areas with 1M+ adults 21+
Most of these metros are unlike any Iowa county; read the order as a rough guide.
- 1San Jose, CA1st of 44 large metros
- 2San Francisco, CA2nd of 44 large metros
- 3Washington, DC3rd of 44 large metros
- 4Raleigh, NC4th of 44 large metros
- 5Boston, MA5th of 44 large metros
Tap a dot or a row to see a place.
What this means for you
Supplier
Look first at markets with more professional jobs than the usual metro (39.0%). Among the top-ranked large metros that do: San Jose 58.4%, San Francisco 55.5%, Washington 57.6%.
Distributor
The ranked markets are those whose people look most like the Iowa counties where bourbon sales make up more of whiskey sales. Iowa sales only; an association between places, not a cause or a sales forecast.
Did you know?
$40.1M$40.1M of bourbon sold in Iowa in 12 months (Oct 2025 to Sep 2026).
Whiskey’s $32.31 of every $100
@@CH:j39@@Each style links to its own answer.
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Related
What this rests on
County sales by category in Iowa (99 counties, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026), checked in Pennsylvania (67 counties, Jul 2024 to Jun 2025), plus Census ACS 2024 5-year. An association between places, not a cause or a sales forecast.
How the dollars are made: the category’s share of spirits dollars in the Iowa counties that hold the top quarter and the bottom quarter of adults on a measure, written as dollars of every $100.