The Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s (ABC) stores set a record for sales for the 15th straight year in 2013.
Leading the way: Jack Daniels and vodka.
Gross sales surged to $769 million, up $35 million from the previous year, and profits rose to $134 million, an increase of $2 million over last year at the agency’s 344 stores.
“The growth in sales is attributed in part to expanded Sunday sales and the opening of six new stores across the state,” ABC Chairman J. Neal Insley said in a statement. “We are also noticing a trend of customers ‘buying up,’ or purchasing more top-shelf brands, a hopeful indication of a recovering economy,” he said.
So what are the most popular liquors and brand in the state? According to the ABC:
ABC’s top-selling brands
- Jack Daniel’s 7 Black (Tennessee whiskey)
- Smirnoff 80 (domestic vodka)
- Jim Beam (straight bourbon whiskey)
- Grey Goose (imported vodka)
- Crown Royal (Canadian whisky)
ABC’s top-selling alcohol
- Vodka
- Whiskey
- Cordials
“Corn whiskey (legal moonshine) saw the sharpest increase in sales, jumping 123 percent from $1.7 million to $3.8 million,” according to the ABC.
