US GDP per capita

US craft distilleries and GDP per capita have tracked each other with a 0.97 correlation since 2005, implying that every thousand dollars of additional per capita income spawns approximately 0.4 new craft gin operations somewhere in a renovated warehouse. The distillery count went from a few hundred to over 9,000. GDP per capita went from $44,000 to over $60,000. The obvious conclusion is that whiskey is currency, and we've simply been measuring it wrong.

Craft distillery growth is a discretionary-income phenomenon: artisan spirits are premium products that consumers trade up to when they have more money, and entrepreneurs launch when capital is available and consumer demand is proven. The US craft spirits movement accelerated markedly after the Craft Beverage Modernization Act provisions of 2010 and 2017, which reduced federal excise taxes on small producers, but the underlying fuel was rising household wealth and a cultural shift toward premiumization of food and drink. GDP per capita's steady post-2009 recovery provided both the consumer spending and the investor confidence that fed distillery growth.

Prosperity unlocks a predictable portfolio of luxuries, and tracking any one of them will make it look, on paper, like it caused the others. The real driver is the rising tide beneath all of them.