Compare method

Either you implement a compare-method for your object:

- (NSComparisonResult)compare:(Person *)otherObject {
    return [self.birthDate compare:otherObject.birthDate];
}

NSArray *sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingSelector:@selector(compare:)];

NSSortDescriptor (better)

or usually even better:

NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor;
sortDescriptor = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"birthDate"
                                           ascending:YES];
NSArray *sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingDescriptors:@[sortDescriptor]];

You can easily sort by multiple keys by adding more than one to the array. Using custom comparator-methods is possible as well. Have a look at the documentation.

Blocks (shiny!)

There's also the possibility of sorting with a block since Mac OS X 10.6 and iOS 4:

NSArray *sortedArray;
sortedArray = [drinkDetails sortedArrayUsingComparator:^NSComparisonResult(Person *a, Person *b) {
    return [a.birthDate compare:b.birthDate];
}];

Performance

The -compare: and block-based methods will be quite a bit faster, in general, than using NSSortDescriptor as the latter relies on KVC. The primary advantage of the NSSortDescriptor method is that it provides a way to define your sort order using data, rather than code, which makes it easy to e.g. set things up so users can sort an NSTableView by clicking on the header row.

@implementation TestClass

- (void) dealloc
{
    // If you don't remove yourself as an observer, the Notification Center
    // will continue to try and send notification objects to the deallocated
    // object.
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self];
    [super dealloc];
}

- (id) init
{
    self = [super init];
    if (!self) return nil;

    // Add this instance of TestClass as an observer of the TestNotification.
    // We tell the notification center to inform us of "TestNotification"
    // notifications using the receiveTestNotification: selector. By
    // specifying object:nil, we tell the notification center that we are not
    // interested in who posted the notification. If you provided an actual
    // object rather than nil, the notification center will only notify you
    // when the notification was posted by that particular object.

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
        selector:@selector(receiveTestNotification:) 
        name:@"TestNotification"
        object:nil];

    return self;
}

- (void) receiveTestNotification:(NSNotification *) notification
{
    // [notification name] should always be @"TestNotification"
    // unless you use this method for observation of other notifications
    // as well.

    if ([[notification name] isEqualToString:@"TestNotification"])
        NSLog (@"Successfully received the test notification!");
}

@end

... somewhere else in another class ...

- (void) someMethod
{

    // All instances of TestClass will be notified
    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] 
        postNotificationName:@"TestNotification" 
        object:self];

}