Bald eagle nesting pairs in the US

As bald eagles have recovered across America, craft distilleries have multiplied with almost identical enthusiasm, a correlation of 0.993 that connects the national bird to artisanal bourbon with the patriotic confidence of a scatter plot that was clearly drawn on the Fourth of July. The eagle soars, the whiskey ages, and the chart achieves near-perfection with the American exceptionalism of two trends that refuse to stop growing.

Bald eagle nesting pairs grew from about 9,800 to over 71,000 between 2005 and 2021. Craft distilleries grew from about 200 to over 2,500 during the same period, driven by the same premiumization trend that lifted craft beer, artisan cheese, and every other "craft" category. Both are smooth upward curves: eagles because of conservation success, distilleries because of consumer demand for small-batch spirits. The shared variable is simply the 2010s being a good decade for things that grow—including both wildlife populations and liquor licenses.

Nine years of bald eagles and craft distilleries is the most American correlation in this entire dataset: the national bird recovering while the national spirit proliferates, both measured in numbers that go up and to the right with unwavering confidence. The eagle is protected, the whiskey is aged, and the correlation between them is pure red-white-and-blue coincidence. E pluribus unum. Neat, no ice.