Kentucky Bourbon

The state of Kentucky and bourbon whiskey go hand in hand. They just fit, like peanut butter and jelly. And there's a reason for that, Kentucky is well known for being the Bourbon Capital of the World, and rightfully so. It's said that the Bluegrass State produces about 95% of the world's bourbon. Kentucky has a rich history with bourbon dating back to the late 1700s. Many settlers that immigrated to the Kentucky region were from Germany, Scotland, and Northern Ireland and they brought with them a wealth of whiskey-distilling knowledge from their homelands. History.com has an in-depth breakdown of Kentucky's bourbon-producing history here if you're interested in learning more.

Photo by Anastasia Zhenina on Unsplash

All things considered, you would think that Kentuckians' favorite alcoholic beverage would be bourbon, but bourbon's popularity actually comes in second to another popular alcoholic beverage.

Bourbon Takes a Seat Behind Beer

Yes, you read that right, the most popular alcoholic beverage in the Bluegrass state isn't bourbon, it's beer. According to a study from Toast, they analyzed the popularity of different drinks in restaurants across the United States. During the study, Toast found that beer reigns supreme, with beer being the most popular alcoholic beverage in all 50 states.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Now it should come as no surprise that Kentucky's next favorite alcoholic beverage behind beer, is whiskey. However, Kentucky came in third in the country behind Kansas and Ohio for whiskey consumption in the study, which is kind of wild.

And while we’re on the topic of Kentucky whiskey, we were surprised to find that diners at restaurants we looked at in Kansas, on average, drank more whiskey than any other state in Q2 2023. Ohio and Kentucky ranked second and third, respectively, for the most whiskey consumed per restaurant location that we observed in Q2 2023.

You can see the full study from Toast, here.

LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

Gallery Credit: Angela Underwood