Can Your Drink of Choice Predict Your Voting Habits?

According to research done by Jennifer Dube of the right-leaning National Media Research, Planning and Placement (NMRPP), our choice drink provides a pretty good indicator of our choice politics.

According to CNN, Dube analyzed consumer data from 50,000 interviews from the past two years, and drafted a handy bubbly graph. She found some colorful correlations between the brands. Republicans tended to drink darker whiskies while Democrats stuck to clear liquors like vodka, gin and tequila. Rum, it turned out, was the great uniter, with a nearly equal number of righties and lefties saying their favorite drink was a Captain or Bacardi.

a drinking graph; Credit: Via National Media: Click here to see a larger image

Dube also determined that alcohol preference predicts not just who people might vote for, but whether they would vote at all. Wine drinkers tended to have a strong showing at the polls, with the top 14 out of 15 brands that indicate someone is likely to vote being wines. Tanqueray gin, skewing liberal, was the exception (and Beefeater, skewing conservative, following not far behind).

The findings might reflect statistics of voting age, where older people tend not only to drink wine but vote in droves. Jaegermeister and Don Julio both indicated a lack of votership, hard liquor more popular among the young.

Political leanings varied among wine brands, too, where Robert Mondavi drinkers carried a strong right-leaning bent, and those who prefer Smoking Loon, a wine that Don Sebastiani & Sons' CEO says “symbolizes an attitude, a bohemian, a jack of many trades, a lifestyle-type character,” jumping at the chance to vote left.

Both wines are Californian. Gallo, Stutter Home, and Trader Joe's now “three-buck Chuck” all make wines Democrats like, whereas Kendall Jackson, Sterling Vineyards, and (not to be outdone in the shamelessness department) Franzia box wine drinkers are more likely to vote conservative.

Champagne, it turns out, is a drink largely only enjoyed by Democrats, so if your conservative friend complimented you on the New Year's Champagne this past week, you now know that they were most likely just being polite — or, considering the political climate these days, sarcastic.

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.