The folks at FiveThirtyEight (they of the numbers for everything) recently published some really interesting statistics on alcohol consumption by type (beer/wine/liquor) and per capita in almost 200 countries around the world. The data is compiled with the help of numbers from the World Health Organization and the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and provides a really interesting look not only at what’s popular around the globe now-a-days, but also what was popular over time in the US.
Some results are not terribly surprising: France does indeed drink more wine than any other nation. Here in the US, we drank more during the 80s and post-2008 recession than we did in the mid and late 90s.
Other results are definitely more startling: Namibia consumes more beer per capita than either the Czech Republic or Germany, for example.
And then there are downright shocking revelations: Australia doesn’t even break the top 10 in beer consumption? How is this possible?! All of my Monty Python-based cultural studies have been rendered irrelevant!
Anyhow, don’t believe me–check it out yourself!
I feel my apartment was underrepresented in this study. However it is encouraging to know I’ll soon be visiting the number 2 beer consuming country in the world.