Illinois Holiday Drinking: Here’s What’s Being Ordered The Most

If you doubt what I'm about to tell you, then just go out on Wednesday night, the night before Thanksgiving, and tell me what you see being ordered more than other bar offerings.

The Wednesday night before Thanksgiving is traditionally known by a couple of different names like "Drinksgiving" and "Blackout Wednesday," so that should be the perfect opportunity to be a drinking observer...or gleeful participant.

The tradition of heavy drinking on the night before Thanksgiving dates back several decades, though it wasn’t always called “Blackout Wednesday.” It grew out of a mix of factors like college students returning home for the holiday, friends and family gathering in their hometowns, and the general fact that the day before a major holiday is one of the few times people feel they can party without work the next morning.

So, what are they partying with?

The Holidays Are Big When It Comes To Alcohol Consumption, But There Are Plenty Of People Who Keep It Rolling All Year Long

More booze gets poured and more elbows get bent around the holidays here in Illinois than at any other time of the year, and between Thanksgiving week and New Year's Day it picks up even more.

It's holiday-time 2025, but if we were to hop into a time machine and go back a few years, we'd be reaching for some of these old-timey holiday cocktail favorites:

• Hot buttered rum
• Heavily-spiked eggnog
• Wassail
• Tom and Jerrys
• Mulled wine
• Glögg
• Hot toddy
• Flaming rum punch (Clarence the Angel's favorite)

Sure, you can still get those things today (except for maybe the flaming rum punch), but they're not nearly as common as they were at one time.

The Best Way To Figure Out What Each State's Residents Are Grooving To At Their Favorite Bars Or Restaurants Is To Ask Those Bars and Restaurants What People Are Routinely Drinking

That's what Toast, an all-in-one digital platform built for restaurants, did to come up with their answers as to what each state's most-ordered alcohol-based drinks might be:

To better understand alcohol trends in restaurants, Toast analyzed how the popularity of select drinks and spirits varied for restaurants on the Toast platform from state to state. Toast analyzed the sale of beer, wine, cider, hard seltzer, and spirits: vodka, tequila, whiskey, gin, rum, and brandy.

The most popular alcoholic beverage in the United States is beer, even if it's not the most-ordered drink in every state. You'd think that Wisconsin, often described as the drunkest state in America, would lead the nation in beer-drinking, but they don't. That title goes to Minnesota, where they drink 50% more beer than the national average.

Here in Illinois, our most-ordered alcoholic beverage is:

Here In The Land Of Lincoln, We Really Like Hard Seltzer And Order A Lot Of It

According to the Toast study, Ohio holds the title of hard seltzer capital of the country, followed by Massachusetts, then Illinois.

WGNTV.com:

Here in Illinois, if someone was ordering an alcoholic beverage, it was very likely to be a hard seltzer. Toast found that, on average, Ohio establishments sold 160% more hard seltzers than restaurants in other states. Selling the second-highest rate was Massachusetts at 109% more, and Illinois came in third at 92%.