All your friends recently splurged on 10-piece cocktail sets. Yep, craft cocktails are officially trendy.
The data-mining folks at Google Trends told Mashable that while U.S. searches for the term "craft cocktail" first hit Google in 2011, searches for the handmade, high-quality drinks have risen 284%, as of August.
But while boozers can still get their craft cocktail fixes at local bars, more people are searching for ways to make the cocktails at home. Google has seen an increase in searches for elements of craft cocktails, such as custom glassware, barrel ages liquors, homemade syrups and small-batch bitters.
In the past three years, searches for the terms "bitters" and "simple syrup" have risen 62% and 23%, respectively. Meanwhile, searches for "coupe glasses" are up a 100% over the past two years, while searches for "ginger beer recipe" has risen by 44%.
The trend has also infiltrated YouTube, where uploads of cocktail recipe videos are up by 70% from last year. According to Google, there are currently 23,000 how-to drink recipe videos -- and more than 1,500 of those are just for martinis.
So, with the increased interest in homemade craft cocktails, all there's left to do is to try it yourself. Because who wants to spend 18 dollars on a drink you could have made in the comfort of your kitchen?
[nggallery id="18645" layout="list" title="top"]