Nicola Twilley teases out mobile libations, the popularity of different drinks on New York City commuter train routes:
In terms of spirits, vodka is the runaway top-seller on both services, with an anonymous bartender letting slip to the Times that “stockbroker customers ‘all drink vodka,’ while construction workers ‘are all about the beer.’” On both lines, white wine is preferred over red “by a two-to-one ratio” — perhaps due to eminently sensible concerns about spillage. …. Buried in these kinds of discrepancies, are there, as the Times suggests, clues about “the cultural divide that separates points north and east of Manhattan?”
But what about airline routes?
While much has been made online about ginger ale’s unexpected aerial dominance (apparently one in ten drinks ordered in economy on American Airlines is a ginger ale, compared to its puny three percent terrestrial market share), there seems not to be a sustained geographical analysis of the beverage consumption patterns on different routes and airlines — or even different seat positions. Do window-seat people disproportionately favour vegetable juice, for example, or is that just the case on the routes I’ve been flying?
I suspect these preferences carry over from liquid to solid, affecting the cups we carry. A look around a New York subway will show very different forms clutched from neighborhood to neighborhood and line to line — from the Anthora to the perfect Thermos.
