Allen's Reigns Supreme (Still)

Waiting for these figures each year is as about as suspenseful as wondering what day comes immediately after New Year’s Eve. And if you happen to be drinking liquor in Maine as you stay up late to find out, the booze most likely to be sloshing around in your glass is Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy.
For as long as anyone can remember, Allen’s has been at the top of the bottle heap each year when the state Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages releases its annual list of best-selling brands in Maine. In fact, Allen’s sometimes captures the number two spot, too, and for the past several years has taken up four of the top 10.
That’s because the state bureau keeps separate statistics on different bottle sizes of liquor. For Allen's and many other brands of booze in Maine there are four to chose from: 1,750 ml, 1,000 ml, 750 ml and 375 ml.
Not surprisingly, Allen's full quartet is back on the list again in 2009. In terms of number of cases sold, different sizes of Allen’s were ranked first, fourth, sixth and eighth. No other brand appears more than once in the top 10.
According to M.S. Walker, the Somerville, Mass. company that makes Allen's, their libation has been the liquor of choice in Maine for more than two decades.
Allen’s half gallon (the common name for the 1,750 ml bottle) usually drowns out the competition. Last year it outsold Orloff Vodka’s half gallon, the second best selling unit, by nearly 2-to-1 in volume and nearly 3-to-1 in gross revenue.
But what I find more impressive than Allen’s lock on Maine livers is the fact that its sales always seem to increase, regardless of the economy. Most anyone with a balance sheet or a monthly payment of any kind can tell you 2009 was not a stellar year for individual incomes, and yet Allen’s sales in Maine went up, if only by slightly more than 2,000 bottles. Allen’s totals for both volume and dollar value have gone up every year since at least 2004, which is the earliest year from which I have the stats.
In 2008, Allen’s sold 1,062,931 bottles (the total for all four bottle sizes) in Maine. Last year, that number rose to 1,065,108. In terms of dollar value, $12,953,850.39 worth of Allen’s was sold in Maine in 2009, up from $12,844,561.63 the prior year.
Relatively speaking, Allen’s sales did slip a little from 2008, however, when its bottles ranked first, third, sixth and seventh. The brand’s 1,000 ml bottle size slipped a notch, as did the 375 ml bottle, also known as a “pocket rocket” (a nickname not unique to Allen’s).
But in terms of brand totals among the top 25, no one came close. Orloff’s overall bottle volume (two of its bottles sizes made the top 25) was 277,998, nearly 800,000 bottles less than Allen’s total. Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum, with three sizes in the top 25, finished in second-place brand in terms of revenue with $5,165,036, which is only about 40 percent of Allen’s statewide take.

There is one way, perhaps, to skew the stats to make Allen’s seem less dominant.
Each year since 2005, more than 1 billion (with a "b") milliliters of Allen’s have been sold in Maine. Allen’s pocket rocket – the only bottle of this size to appear in the top 25 – is at a distinct disadvantage in helping its larger siblings maximize the brand’s overall liquid-measurement volume. If you judge that bottle on its liquid volume alone, it falls to 11th place and gives Allen’s only three of the top 10 spots.
But, yeah, that’s a bit of a stretch.
I am sure there are even more meaningless ways to dissect the stats, but it is the revenue and bottle totals that are the most impressive, and easiest to identify with. In all categories, Allen’s reigns supreme, as usual.
As predictable as all this is, I still find the annual results fascinating, given that most people outside of New England have no idea that coffee brandy as we know it exists.
There is one more thing I’d really like to know, however. Which stores in Maine sell more bottles of Allen’s than anyone else? I’d divide this into two categories, chain stores (a la Hannaford) and smaller independent owner-operators. That info has the potential to be a fairly strong demographic indicator, I would think. I know it is popular Downeast, but I bet it sells pretty well everywhere in Maine. At the very least, it would give somebody some pretty decent bragging rights.