The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) released its Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report on Tuesday, showing total sales of $3.15 billion (including liquor and sales taxes), reflecting a $136.3 million or 4.5% increase over the prior year. Net income for the year totaled $260.8 million, a decrease of $70.1 million or 21.2% as compared to fiscal year 2021-22.
The report also provided data on a county-by-county level, including a list of the top-selling variety of wine and spirits for each of the 67 counties in the Commonwealth.
We decided to add some additional numbers to the map, showing how each county voted in the last five statewide elections for president, senator and governor.
We’re not sure that this really indicates any significant trend that campaigns can use in the upcoming months, or that preferring cabernet sauvignon means your political leanings go one way, or preferring unflavored vodka means you lean the other way.
Compare. Contrast. Maybe you’ll see something we didn’t.
Or just take it for the fun map that we whipped up today.
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3 Responses
The first county I looked at (Berks county) is wrong. McCaffery won by 2. You have Carluccio by 1.
Do a little more research before talking about Perry’s block.
Boxed red for the win! I can see how some counties use boxed wine out of convenience — tioga, potter with hunting camps, seasonal homes, fishing, hunting and tourists, and maybe add Forest and Warren in this mix. Assuming box wine is the least expensive wine. there’s also a socio-economic at play in this. That might explain Schuylkill and Lebanon.
The Fulton, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, Perry block. Isn’t that Mastriano-Scott Perry-MAGA-Freedom Caucus territory? Who’d ah thunk those rascal-insurrectionists are big boxed red wine drinkers?
As to the Chester county preference for Chardonnay, Chesco is always cited as the wealthiest county in PA (and with a very low poverty rate too, 3.10% families 5.20% of the population). The wealthy have refined tastes. Picture the well-to-dos being served an evening meal in their estate home looking out over their white-picket fenced property as horses lazily graze on the grass: Shall I refill your wine glass, sir? Yes, James more chard for me please. And turn on the electric fencing. And release the hounds for the night! We can’t have the unwashed masses from delco, or god forbid cecil county, maryland overrun the estate begging for food scraps. Make sure to throw all the food waste into the organic, vegan compost pile straight away. And bring me some after-dinner brandy in a snifter, to the study, after I go there to doze off for the evening.
Columbia + Montour (easy to miss Montour!), and Union. That’s partly McCormick territory, and includes one big public and one big private college. Maybe that’s a demographic mix to suggest chard over the alternatives.
Adams and Venango. May be outliers choosing chard.