If you’ve been outside of the U.S. for a while, several things might surprise you when you return. Cars and trucks are somehow even bigger than before. Fewer people smoke. And flavored whiskey is everywhere.
At least that’s how things looked to me recently, on my first trip back home since before the pandemic. From news reports, I was prepared for the first two shifts. But on my first night visiting family, I realized that flavored whiskey had grown more than I’d expected when my brother reached for a bottle of Skrewball to make a drink.
That peanut butter whiskey brand was practically unknown at the time of my last visit in 2019, having just launched in a limited release the year before; after less than five years on the market, it was purchased by Pernod-Ricard in May 2023. Sazerac’s Fireball was already huge when I was last stateside, but still not in the position it holds today, as Dave Williams, an analyst at Bump Williams Consulting, explained when I asked him about how flavor is shifting the current whiskey market.
“Where do you think Fireball ranks among all spirits brands — not just whiskey — in terms of sales?” he asked. “It’s the No. 2 spirits brand. Bigger than Jack Daniel’s. Bigger than Jim Beam. So that’ll tell you the role that flavor has the ability to play in the spirits world.”
For better or worse, it’s now obvious that flavored whiskey has broadly changed North American drinking culture.
